The Bell Tolls for Thee

Josh Bell is in Baltimore and in the starting lineup tonight. Pretty exciting, even if his AAA numbers weren't great.

To me, this means someone in the infield is likely to be traded soon. Because the team's replacing an outfield/DH guy in Luke Scott (on the DL with a freaky hamstring strain seen here), and Felix Pie is due back on the team soon, you'd figure when Pie gets the call, an infielder is likely to go. But whom? 

The most likely prospect to me is a trade of Ty Wigginton, who is one of only a few O's with real trade value heading into the trade deadline at the end of the month. Tejada could be of value as well. But while Bell is on the team, you'd have to figure Miggy will be the primary DH.

Cheers to Miggy on his decent work at 3rd. Even with his subpar range (although if we knew his real age, we might be more impressed by his play), he's done a decent job transferring to the hot corner.

Looks like Bell's time has come. Hopefully, he's another piece to the puzzle. God knows Andy MacPhail could use some good PR right now, and Bell's positive play would mean more success from the Bedard trade. (For those of you just tuning in, the O's got Josh Bell from the George Sherrill trade to the Dodgers last July, and Sherrill was received as part o the 5-player package for Bedard.)

Luke Turns the Tide

Some game tonight.

Two-out hits, clutch relief pitching, good baserunning, some good small-ball. And then of course it almost all falls apart on yet another hard to believe error by Cesar Izturis. (Even the game-ending groundout by A-Roid was almost flipped away by Lugo. And was surprised to see Rodriguez first-pitch swinging.)

But there were plenty of stars tonight.

Rhyne Hughes continues to get huge hits and look good at first. I think Trembley would be crazy to sit him tomorrow night, even against the lefty Sabathia. Go with the hot hand. This kid seems to be sparking the offense.

Izturis finally showed some life with the stick, with 3 ribbies.

Reimold had a big hit.

Wiggy found his way on base a bunch of times and scored the go-ahead run.

Lugo stole a big base and advanced to third on Posada's errant throw, eventually scoring the much-needed 5th run.

Castillo continued to look fantastic, JJ was back to himself in his more comfortable 8th (although he still doesn't look the same), and Simon was electric in the closer's role on his first day back in the bigs.

But I'd like to be the first (I think) to bring up the fact that Luke Scott had a tremendous at bat in the 6th inning. He was down 0-2 in the count and worked a tough walk off of Logan who was brought in to face him. Seemed trivial at the time with two outs, but then the gates opened up and the O's scored three times for the 4-2 lead.

I think that Scott's walk was the turning point in the game. It would have been quite easy for Luke, who's now batting .217, to be swinging for the fences - down by one run and trying to protect the plate.

Give him credit where it's due on a night of many heroes.

St. Luke

Luke Scott may have just saved the city from burning tonight. OK, maybe the fans aren't THAT passionate, but that was a hell of an at-bar for a pinch-hit. Trembley may get credit in the press for that, but had he not made the move of pinch-hitting Scott for Izturis, he should've been fired by the end of the inning.