In Only Two Weeks, Orioles Have Returned to Last Year’s Form

The door to the visiting manager’s office was closed, and nobody dared knock. Finally, a grim-faced Frank Robinson opened it. In stockinged feet, he padded back to his desk and slowly lowered himself into the brown leather swivel chair against the concrete wall. Then, he closed his eyes. Perhaps because no joker had offered a blindfold.

For 3 1/2 miraculous months, as the Baltimore Orioles astounded the baseball world, his eyes had seen the glory. Now, after their 11th loss in 12 games on this hideously-played 14-game road trip, he was seeing the Orioles at their bumbling, stumbling worst. He was seeing them as they were last season, when they were baseball’s laughingstock.

Even as they were losing the last game of their homestand July 19, the Orioles took to the road with a 7 1/2-game lead over their many lame pursuers in the American League East. Almost overnight, it seemed, they had crumbled--in Oakland, in Minnesota, in Kansas City, and now, here. It was as if the magic that touched them the first half of the season were a mirage.

“Not overnight, but in a very short period of time,” Robinson said. “It’s tough to believe we’re playing the way we’re playing. Each ballgame, you come back (to the dressing room) and say, ‘Maybe the next one.’ But it’s happening. You see it. I see it. It’s not going to go away until we make it go away.”

It was 6:15 p.m., the dinner hour, but Robinson had not yet digested the Orioles’ sloppily-played 5-3 loss. While his mostly silent players wolfed down plastic-wrapped food off a buffet cart and two dozen reporters milled around uneasily, each waiting for the other to ask the first question, Robinson sat at his desk in the inner sanctum, still in full uniform. It was that most brutal of baseball days, a day-night doubleheader. Robinson and the Orioles, who were looking more and more like a team destined to never win again, were prisoners of Fenway Park. In just over an hour, they had another game to play.

As badly as they had played on this road trip, the Orioles were still leading the league in fielding percentage entering the Boston Red Sox series. But after committing 38 errors in the first 82 games, they have made 23 errors in the last 22.

They made four errors in Monday night’s 9-6 loss and two more in Tuesday afternoon’s defeat, not including such lowlights as rightfielder Joe Orsulak losing Jim Rice’s sixth-inning fly ball in the sun. It fell for a double, and Rice’s pinch-runner, Ellis Burks, later scored the tying run.

There is no part of the Orioles game that hasn’t fallen apart on this trip. Their knack for getting a timely hit has evaporated: Red Sox pitchers yielded 10 walks in Tuesday’s opener, but the Orioles stranded nine runners and scored just three. When Red Sox starters faltered in the first two games of the series, the Red Sox’ two worst pitchers, Bob Stanley and Dennis Lamp, came in and shut down the Orioles in respective three-inning stints.

As for their own pitching, Orioles starters are rarely making it past the fifth inning. Middle relief has been spotty. Rookie closer Gregg Olson, who made good on 15 of 15 save opportunities and was virtually unhittable before the All-Star break, has blown four of his last five save opportunities and had an 0-2 record and 5.87 ERA in his last six appearances prior to this series.

On this road trip, the Orioles have lost six games by one or two runs.

“Before, we couldn’t do anything wrong,” Robinson said. “Now, we can’t do anything right.”

But Robinson has done right by abandoning the abrasive managerial ways he sometimes showed in his three seasons with the Cleveland Indians (1975-77) and four seasons with the San Francisco Giants (1981-84). Besides having been a Hall of Fame player, Robinson is an intelligent guy. He has learned from his mistakes. He is still not shy about disciplining a player or calling for an off-day practice if he perceives a lack of effort or attention to detail, but he says he hasn’t seen anything this season that would warrant his screaming.

“They’re trying,” he said. “I don’t see what good it’s going to do for me to go out and holler at them.”

When the Orioles opened the 1988 season by losing 21 in a row, it was Robinson who kept the situation from getting even uglier by keeping his cool and his door open to reporters. By doing so, he realized, he was keeping added pressure off his players.

Having survived that 54-107 horror show without exploding, the first half of this season has been heavenly. Robinson has been a veritable Bill Cosby. The consensus at the All-Star break was that he had Manager of the Year locked up. But just as Robinson gave nearly all the credit to his players when things were going right, he is quick to admit that there’s only so much he can do now that things are going wrong.

“I don’t go out and play for them,” he said. “I just put them in the lineup. I’m at the mercy of the players.”

The players. Aside from All-Star shortstop Cal Ripken, they’re basically a bunch of no-names who were picked to finish last by everyone. The feeling of some Orioles insiders was that the players were blessedly oblivious to the wonders they were working, and might now be oblivious to the full impact of their meteoric fall.

Not true, outfielder Phil Bradley says.

“Pitchers don’t even have to make their best pitch because you (Orioles) are frustrated,” Bradley said. “You’re trying to do too much.”

It was journeyman minor-league pitcher Dave Johnson’s turn to try in Tuesday’s nightcap. Johnson, 29, was called up from Triple A Tuesday morning to make his first major league start. He was the 10th starting pitcher the Orioles used this season. And he fared the way most Orioles pitchers have of late. He lost 6-2 as the Orioles dropped to 1-12 on this road trip, 1-13 in their last 14 games.

Before Tuesday’s doubleheader, Robinson initiated one-on-one talks with four of his players. A fifth, Olson, sought him out. If only winning were so easy.

“You can have all the meetings you want,” Robinson said. “But if you don’t do it on the field, nothing’s going to get done.”

The long, ugly day was over, and as they dressed to go back to their hotel, the Orioles were mostly silent, and even a bit more frustrated. They were still in first place, but at this rate, not for long. On the field, nothing was getting done.