Hagerstown Suns right fielder Bryce Harper crushed his first home run of the season at Municipal Stadium Thursday. It is his second home run of the year after hitting one on a road trip at Lexington last week. Harper is batting .261 (12-for-46) in 14 games with two home runs and eight RBI. He is tied for the team lead in RBI with Blake Kelso. The home run was another of the line drive variety. The wind was moving left to right across the field and that aided the left-handed hitters...

During a meeting with reporters in New York this week, Commissioner Bud Selig said that baseball is considering expanded playoffs for 2012, meaning 10 teams, instead of eight, will be vying for the World Series. The format is undetermined, but the two wild card teams in each league will likely play a one-game playoff or a three-game series to advance. Can't baseball learn from the NHL or NBA, where the playoffs never end, that more is not better, especially trying to play a summer game in...

Sticking out like a sore thumb on the youthful Washington Nationals is 43-year-old Matt Stairs, a former All-Star turned pinch-hitting specialist who gets woken up once every 18 innings to attempt to hit a home run. It's a role he has come to embrace over the course of an incredible and arguably underappreciated 19-year-career. One of the greatest minds in baseball history, Bill James, once wrote of Stairs: "Look at it. Somebody decided he was a second baseman, he tears through the minor...

As the Orioles begin another series versus the New York Yankees tonight, O's fans are probably quite aware of the Birds' struggles against this club. The Orioles are 0-2 this year and went 5-13 last season versus New York. They have lost 26 of the last 33 in this series and the Yankees are 16-6 in their last 22 games against the O's at Camden Yards. The Yankees' winning percentage all-time at Camden Yards of .644 is the best by any visiting team. If the Orioles are indeed improved this...

So we are now 18 games into the season and Nick Markakis is batting .203 with two homers and six RBIs. He has a slugging percentage of .319 and OPS of .592. Last night he went 0-for-4 and twice failed to come up with the clutch hit when batting with two men on base. He has just three hits over his last 28 at-bats for an average of .107 and just eight hits over his last 55 at-bats for a mark of .145 since April 6. Last night, reader Gerry O. left this comment about Markakis and his struggles...

The offense is back. Or it isn't. Pick a night. The Orioles scored 16 runs in their last two games before last night, but Scott Baker shut them out for seven innings, and they managed only one run on Vladimir Guerrero's infield hit off Jim Hoey. It's especially disturbing when you consider that they didn't score after the third inning in Wednesday night's 5-4 victory. That's one run in 14 innings. The No. 2 hitter, Nick Markakis is batting .203. No. 3 hitter Derrek Lee is batting...

Jeremy Guthrie turned in yet another good performance last night against the Minnesota Twins, even though he was handed the defeat. He went seven innings, gave up two runs, walked no one and struck out four. This is Guthrie's fifth season with the Orioles. Is it time to start considering him among the great Oriole hurlers of all time? It sounds like an odd question. He's not a strikeout king. His career record is 39-51. Even though he has been the staff ace by default, nobody really...

Jeremy Guthrie turned in another quality start, but he wasn't satisfied, saying he was "outpitched" by Minnesota's Scott Baker and took the loss. "I didn't make the big pitches where I needed to," he said. "It's a reoccurring thing and it's not good enough, not good enough tonight, not good enough last time, not good enough the time before. So we'll work on it, try to get better, make better pitches." At least Guthrie has his health. "I felt much stronger today than I felt the...

Manager Buck Showalter spent about five minutes taking questions from reporters after tonight's 3-1 loss to the Twins. On Jeremy Guthrie: "His health, he's turned the corner. He's in good shape. He gave us a real chance to win. Deserves a better fate. Just ran up against a guy who was as good as he was tonight, and maybe a little better. Got a changeup out over the plate to (Jim) Thome. And we just didn't put much together offensively. We didn't square up many balls at all. We knew...

The 2011 season has been a bit of a roller coaster ride for Orioles manager Buck Showalter, whose team started off 6-1, then lost eight in a row before snapping the lengthy losing streak at home. With the O's in the middle of a 10-game homestand, Showalter took some time out of his busy schedule and welcomed me into his office for his inaugural MASNsports.com video blog. The O's manager talked about the continued efforts to get a winning culture established in Baltimore, and how he uses the...