Rob Long: Orioles' Starting Five
On Thursday, we spent a significant amount of time talking about the Baltimore Orioles starting rotation on the Vinny and Rob Show. Then, I logged onto MASNSPORTS.com and find that my good friend Roch Kubatko blogged about the same topic.
Many of his sentiments are the same as mine. I think back on the days when I tried to convince myself that Rodrigo Lopez was a budding front of the rotation starter. No, he wasn't horrible, but in five years with the O's he was 60-58 with a 4.72 era.
I remember hoping David Hernandez would be a legitimate starter? He's done well in Arizona but he's no starter. Brad Bergesen was an option as a starting pitcher recently in this organization too. He was a very good option, but that was the hand that was dealt.
No disrespect to those guys because they were hard workers, but the O's, under Buck Showalter, have better options than that. The decisions that Buck has to make are good decisions. According to Roch, Buck doesn't see this as tough. When asked he responded with, "No, not at all," he said. "Tough competition is when you don't have any candidates, and I've had that here. This isn't tough. I mean, it's good. It's good for the Orioles. I like that."
It's fun having to decide between young arms like Jake Arrieta and Steve Johnson. Arrieta pitched six scoreless innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates, striking out nine. Okay Steve, it's your turn. This could be fun.
