This team is horrible. Markakis is highly overrated in the field. He’s got an arm, but if he could get to more line drives then nobody would notice his arm because he wouldn’t be trying to catch guys stretching for doubles or triples nearly as often.

Adam Jones was mediocre last year, but because the rest of the team was so bad… it made him look better. JJ Hardy was the lone bright spot, and I’d have to assume it was a fluke that won’t be repeated, simply because… this is the Orioles!

The pitching… I’ve never seen a team give up so many leads in the first inning. The bullpen gave up Uehara, who should have been the closer from day 1. Mike Gonzalez was given an infinite leash, for no apparent reason at all. And Kevin Gregg? Wow.

It’s just bad baseball in Baltimore, and if the Nationals do half as good as most are expecting, Camden Yards could quite possibly be torn down within a few years to make more room for Ravens tailgating lots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

The Scorpion and the Frog is a fable about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the position that the behaviour of some creatures is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences.

You’ll notice that the Orioles had a hell of a time hiring a GM (that’d be the frog in this analogy) last offseason…