The All-Star break beckons, and the Orioles remain a study in contrast. It's as if they have been playing tug of war with themselves for the past three months.
If you want proof, you need only look at the past couple of weeks, during which they have staged a series of unlikely comebacks that would seem to signal some inner reservoir of character and resilience, only to lapse quickly back into cellar ball just when their fans start to feel like the franchise might actually be making progress.
None of this should be terribly surprising, of course. Fifth-place teams are not known for their consistency, yet even the teams at the bottom of the standings are populated with major league players who are liable to express their major league talent at any time. Hence, it is possible to see the worst team in baseball look like the best team in baseball every once in awhile.
So, it would be tempting to think that nothing has changed. The Orioles are still looking way, way up at the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, and the first half of the season has not produced a dramatic change in the overall competitiveness of the franchise.
It doesn't help that perception when the Orioles get shut out by a group of unheralded Toronto Blue Jays pitchers on Friday night and then trot out erratic left-hander Rich Hill to pitch against solid left-hander Ricky Romero on Saturday, but what you see is not necessarily what you're going to get a month or two from now.
Hill, for example, had been removed from the rotation - at least temporarily - until Jeremy Guthrie came down with a virus that knocked him out of the second game of the Toronto series. Hill's return might be just as temporary because there are rumblings of another much-ballyhooed minor league promotion that might make him expendable if his uneven (last night's solid outing notwithstanding) performance doesn't get him first.
The arrival of Chris Tillman, whenever he arrives, will not cause quite the excitement that accompanied top position prospect Matt Wieters to the major leagues six weeks ago, but it's another big step toward that seemingly bright future that everyone has been looking forward to since Andy MacPhail began to resculpt the organization in his own image.
