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Buck Showalter is not the savior of the Baltimore Orioles.

Let’s just accept that fact. As much as the team’s fans wanted that when the season started, it’s clear that he is not. Is he a good, veteran manager? Yes. Is there a sense of professionalism around the team for the first time in a while? Yes.

But, it’s clear that he doesn’t have a magic wand or a spell to make the Orioles’ problems go away. The Birds of 2011 are primarily the same club from 2010. They’re still not a club that’s competing for a playoff spot or close to it.

Yes, the pitching has improved for the most part, but this team is six games below .500 and 10 games behind first-placed Boston. Worse yet, the O’s are fading.

Given the chance to beat some mediocre teams during their most recent road trip, the Orioles took just three contests. They made bad decisions at the plate, on the mound and in the field. Fundamental baseball hasn’t improved much in Baltimore, despite what the marketing campaigns promised.

The Orioles look like a team hanging by a thread. Showalter has already lost a pitching coach and he’s switching his bench coach with his third base coach in hopes of seeing something different.

In some ways, that’s encouraging. Showalter doesn’t have too big an ego to admit that something’s not working and change needs to happen. But, what’s happening with the team isn’t about coaching. It’s about the players, their habits and their talent limitations.

This is a team that has yet to prove it can be coached to a second gear and the odds are, now 72 games into the season, that they aren’t deep or talented enough to catch teams like Boston or New York in the standings.

Showalter got a lot of credit for what happened after August last year. In some respects, that was deserved. But, the 2010 team also got healthy and comfortable just as Showalter showed up. It was a perfect storm for a nice end to the season. While there are many similar parts, the 2011 club isn’t the same as 2010. There has not been a carry over.

It has a different personality and different expectations thanks to that run.

Good players make managers look better. Right now, a good manager in Baltimore doesn’t have enough good players to work even small miracles.

Open thread: The troops are coming home from Afghanistan « Hot Air

President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 “surge,” by the end of next summer , according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision.

These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders , and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public…

Two administration officials said General Petraeus did not endorse the decision , though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is retiring, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reluctantly accepted it. General Petraeus had recommended limiting initial withdrawals and leaving in place as many combat forces as possible for another fighting season, to hold on to fragile gains made in recent fighting.

The Guardian also heard last night that O was about to yank the surge troops over the Pentagon’s objections, with generals pleading with him to give them one more fighting season against the Taliban with full manpower in order to maximize NATO’s leverage at the bargaining table. No dice. How could it have been otherwise? He had all the political cover for a major withdrawal that he could have hoped for here — from the public , from anti-war Democrats, and even from a GOP that seems unsure what its position is anymore on military interventions. I thought last night that he’d do what he always does and piss everyone off by splitting the difference between two rival camps in order to position himself as the cautious pragmatist, but he’s not actually doing that. By ignoring the Pentagon’s wishes and ordering all the surge troops out by next summer, he should make doves pretty happy. And rest assured, conditions on the ground won’t dictate the pace of this withdrawal: The timing here is obviously designed to give him a big talking point ahead of the election about bringing the boys home, so they’ll most assuredly be home by next summer.

let's see who I just pissed off on the thread... Thanks for the fathers day s/o

Sunday Shoutcast thread. Post by Bluto II Cute-O » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:55 pm. It's been a while, but let's try ... *

Sunday Shoutcast thread. Post by Bluto II Cute-O » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:55 pm. It's been a while, but let's try ... *

Sunday Shoutcast thread. Post by Bluto II Cute-O » Sun Jun 19, 2011 10:55 pm. It's been a while, but let's try t...

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