Buck Showalter took over as manager of the Baltimore Orioles August 2, and managed his first game August 3. After a game that was one of the best played all season on Tuesday night, the Birds struggled to win their game Wednesday night.
Brian Matusz was fine for the first six innings, allowing just one run. Rain delayed the ball game for a little while and Matt Albers was brought in to a 9-1 game. That’s where things got interesting. Albers allowed four earned runs in just one-third of an inning.
In these last two months, that’s not a good thing for Albers because Showalter is evaluating the team for the 2011 season. Albers has always had a hot streak and then a cold streak, but Showalter is probably looking for consistency, with an occasional bad appearance.
In the end, the O’s won 9-7 to take the series from the Los Angeles Angels. It’s a good start for the Showalter era, but there are some questions that still need to be answered.
Will Showalter let his starters work out their issues in the middle of a bad outing, or will he use the bullpen like Dave Trembley and Juan Samuel? Will he continue to have the players play aggressively with stolen bases and use the sacrifice bunt to advance runners?
So far so good, but he’s still in the evaluation process and some players still need to make a good, or bad, impression for the 2011 season.
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