ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Baltimore Orioles fired manager Lee Mazzilli on Thursday with the team mired in an eight-game losing streak and still reeling from Rafael Palmeiro's positive drug test. The Orioles have made bench coach Sam Perlozzo the interim manager for the remainder of the season.
Oh, this can't be good. I'm glad football's about to begin...
Its about time. Mazilli was never any good to begin with. You guys should have kept Hargrove (spelled something like that). He was a good manager just didn't have any talent to manage so he lost alot. It will be interesting to see who Angelos gets to manage the team next year.
I thought Mazilli was a pretty good fit for the team. Any manager is hampered by a terrible front office managed by Angelos. If Beatty and Flannagan would have gone out and picked up some more pitching, the O's would have had a chance. Yet another example of Angelos sucking.
Redskins1974 wrote:Hargrove? Angelos should have never fired Davey Johnson back in the late 90s... freakin' idiot.
Yet another good point. What bothers me the most about Angelos is that he was always too cheap to buy players for his team until the Nat's threatened his market. That and he never backs up his managers.
As soon as Ray Miller came in last year, the pitcher's collective ERA's dropped a full point I believe. Without him, the O's are done for years to come.
In the early '50's, Griff allowed the St Louis Browns to move into Baltimore. "Allowed" means that the Browns were bought by a beer company who threatened to pull their commercials from Nats games if Griffith did not allow them to move to Baltimore.
Angelos claims he "owns" Washington, and blocked teams from moving to the District. He might have had an AL team in DC, with a natural rivalry drawing fans from both cities. He was greedy and he lost the chance.
What's the curse? That Angelos is condemned to be himself, and, therefore, to destroy his team. Every year.
I take anybody to task who says that Lee Mazilli did a bad job. For a first timer, I'd say he did what he could. Not everybody inherited a team on the cusp like Francona did. Lee had to manage a team that decided it was going to go the Yankee route and blow some big bucks on some aging all-stars...kinda like the Redskins did in 2000. It almost never works, particularly when you have a manager in his sophmore season. He rode Roberts' bat for as long as he could, and managed Sosa as best he could. In the end, losing Tejada's bat for a month did him no good. Is he really the guy who should hang for Woody's failed drug test ? I hope he returns to NY in some capacity. As a NYY season ticket holder, I appreciated that he would always come over and talk to us all the time during batting practice, and is a real NY guy...peppering his conversations with as many f-bombs as he could squeeze in, in an affable way.
Birds suck. As long as Angelos is the guy, Birds will always suck.
"Sit back and watch the Redskins.
SOMETHING MAGICAL IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!"
JPFair- A fan's fan. RIP, brother
I liked Mazz and I thought he was doing a pretty good job. IMHO, the slide didn't start until trade rumors started popping up, especially with the young guys and head-case ponson.
Oh well, Perlozzo's a good coach, hopefully he will get more of a shot.
RIP 21
"Nah, I trust the laws of nature to stay constant. I don't pray that the sun will rise tomorrow, and I don't need to pray that someone will beat the Cowboys in the playoffs." - Irn-Bru
I don't know if this was always Maz's decision, but he pulled pitchers sometimes when I thought it wasn't necessary.
For example, the other night, Maz put LH Byrdak in to face one LH batter when LA had guys on bases. He put the ball right down the plate, and got one out on solid pitches. But the very next batter, Byrdak was taken out, and RH Chris Ray was put in to face a RH. Ray ended up w/ 2 hits, 1 ER, a couple inherited runs (I believe) from Bedard, and 1 error on his stint. I was kind of pissed, because Byrdak looked so good; do you always have to match up? I felt like since Byrdak was on point, he should have been allowed to continue.
That's the only thing I've noticed in more than a few games this year. Our pitchers are always off-and-on, and I've seen too many "on" pitchers getting the boot, simply because they don't have the LH/RH - LH/RH matchup. And so many times, the releiver brought in for the matchup ends up pitching worse than the guy he releived.
Other than that, I though Maz was a fine coach. But man I wish we had that lineup like we did in the beginning of the year:
1. Brian Roberts
2. Melvin Mora
3. Miguel Tejada
4. Sammy Sosa (he produced in the beginning, after all)
5. Rafael Palmeiro
6. Javy Lopez
7. Jay Gibbons
8. B.J. Surhoff or David Newhan or Larry Bigbie
9. Luis Matos
