Jason Stark of ESPN.com came out with his mid-season awards today with the All-Star game quickly approaching and for once an Oriole actually won an award. Manager Buck Showalter was named AL coach of the year so far for the way he has handled his Orioles squad thus far. His exact quote was

“Meanwhile, in Baltimore, Showalter is again proving that he’s the most underappreciated manager on earth. How do we explain how the worst defensive team in baseball, an outfit that’s had three of its five starters rack up ERAs over 5.00 and a team with the fifth-lowest on-base percentage in the big leagues, would be still alive if the playoffs started today? It all begins with the manager’s mind-boggling attention to detail — and by that I mean, EVERY detail.” 

Actually I have been saying for a while now that it’s pretty amazing how well the Orioles are doing considering their poor starting pitching and on base percentage and their awful defense. I had credited the bullpen for a lot of this but I believe Buck definitely deserves some of the credit as well. I am not sure how long our success will last but Showalter is certainly doing a good job thus far. Here is the link to the ESPN.com article: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8134086/handing-baseball-midseason-awards