The Orioles Warehouse

Ouch. Double ouch. Triple ouch.

The Orioles have been in a free fall the last few weeks. They have no offense whatsoever. They have had about three bright spots all season:

1. Miguel Tejada continuing his MVP-caliber play.
   
2. Brian Roberts blossoming into an MVP-caliber player.
   
3. Rafael Palmeiro getting his 3,000th hit and moving up other leaderboards.

The first two of those continue, although Roberts has (not surprisingly) fallen off some after his magnificent start.

But the third? You can forget about all the goodwill that Palmeiro built up for the team, because Palmeiro was just suspended for steroids. He claims it was all a misunderstanding:

But in a conference call with reporters, Palmeiro said he never intentionally took steroids and could not explain how the drugs got into his body. He also apologized and accepted his punishment.

"I am here to make it very clear that I have never intentionally used steroids," Palmeiro said in a prepared statement. "Never. Ever. Period."

"When I found out that I failed a test under the new drug policy, I filed a grievance and challenged the suspension on the basis that I have never intentionally taken a banned substance. Ultimately, although I never intentionally put a banned substance into my body - the independent arbitrator ruled that I had to be suspended under the terms of the program."

Leaving aside everything else, taking Palmeiro's bat out of the lineup for the next ten games is just about the last thing this team needs. But the ramifications go far beyond that. People are already challenging his HOF case on this basis. And the steroid scandal, which had receded into the background as only a handful of obscure players were caught, is now going to leap back into the spotlight and overshadow the pennant races.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

As David has recounted, the big news of the day is that first baseman Rafael Palmeiro has been suspended ten days by Major League Baseball for violating the league's drug policy. The league's press release announcing the suspension did not identify the banned substance turned up by Palmeiro's drug test, but early reports from other news sources indicate that it was a steroid.

In a decision that was not totally unexpected, the Orioles replaced manager Lee Mazzilli with bench coach Sam Perlozzo this afternoon. Perlozzo, a native Marylander who in the past has been a candidate for managing jobs with the Orioles and other big-league teams, takes over the club for the remainder of the season.

Here's a pleasant story from the ex-Oriole vein: Rick Short, who toiled in the Orioles' organization from 1994 to 2000 without reaching the majors, is having the season of his life for the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. Les Carpenter of the Washington Post wrote a feature-length article on Short entitled “Career Minor Leaguer Is Defying the Law of Averages” that appeared on the front page of the paper yesterday. It describes Short's exceptional year and his twelve-year odyssey through pro baseball, during which he has encountered great frustration and responded to it with equally great determination.