With Cleveland having announced the termination of Eric Wedge earlier today, the MLB Death Watch turns to Orioles skipper Dave Trembley, who’s compiled a brutal 20-49 mark in the O’s last 69 games. “Trembley,” writes the Baltimore Sun’s Kevin Cowherd, “reminds you of a guy in a knife fight and all he has to defend himself is a swizzle stick…he didn’t have the weapons to compete in the dock-brawl that is the American League East. And everyone knows it.” Change a few of the names and you might confuse Cowherd’s column for an autopsy on another hopelessly overmatched manager whose team gave up on him months ago.
This is a team that desperately needs to inject a winning attitude into its young players before they get beaten down and develop the same 1,000-yard stare as some of the veterans.
This is a team that needs to show its dwindling and dispirited fan base that it won’t settle for the kind of ugly baseball it has seen the past two months.
And that has to start with a fresh face in the manager’s office.
Let’s face it: The Orioles hit rock bottom with this collapse. It’s going to leave a bad enough taste in the players’ mouths in the offseason as it is.
To go into a new season with the same guy calling the shots would be unthinkable.