SAMMY AND THE O'S

Sammy Sosa continues his slide into one of the worst everyday players in MLB. He is now at .225/.305/.383=.688. In 2001, his best season statistically, his slugging pct. alone was .737-- almost 50 pts higher than his OPS this season. Since he returned from his injury in May, he is batting only .198. He is on pace for 17 HR and 50 RBI.

He was recently dropped to 6th in the order by O's manager Lee Mazzili. With injuries to key players like Javy Lopez, B.J. Surhoff and Melvin Mora (who has since returned), Sosa was needed to provide offense. Instead he remained in a terrible slump. After a promising start, the Orioles have slumped big time. Recently they lost 12 of 15, including a 6 game skid.

Just a few weeks back they were 14 over and 4 up on the Red Sox. Now they sit at 47-40 and fell to 3rd place before their recent 2 wins. They are struggling to score runs and it will not get any easier. They start the 2nd half with a 10 game road trip. Then they return home for 4 against Texas and 4 against the White Sox. Should they hang around, 6 of their last 9 games are against the BoSox and the Yanks. The Yanks are surging and Boston will get Schilling back. Maybe those games at the end will be meaningless. They could even be done by the end of July. Sammy will have quite a bit to do with that. Over the last 3 years, he has hit more homers in July than any other month. Maybe the break and playing some DH will help. We'll see.