2009 MLB seasoin in review: Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are a bad baseball organization, and a bad baseball team. A new day was supposed to arrive two years ago when Andy McPhail came to town in 2007. McPhail was the architect of the 1987 and 1991 Minnesota Twins World Champions but, so far he has failed to help rebuild the Orioles. Given that the play in the AL east with the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Tampa Bay Rays life is a little tough on them, but beyond Nick Markakis this is a roster pretty devoid of Major League talent.
Their final record was 64-98 and they finished last in their division by 31 games. This was a team projected to win 70-74 games so they underachieved a little. They were in first place for four days and briefly held a .5 game lead. IN the middle of April there were four games better than .500, but finished the season 38 games under .500.
This is a team that lost and lost often. They were only able to win five consecutive games, while suffering a 13 game losing streak in September. They were shut out 13 times, while only able to shut out their opponents three times. They did manage to score 741 runs, but they gave up 876.
The Orioles were able to draw 1,907,163 fans to their home park of Camden Yards; however many of those were Yankee fans priced out of new Yankee Stadium. For their 81 home games they averaged 23,545 but were only able to sell 48.9% of their 2009 ticket inventory.
