As I said in my last post, I'm back from the beach, and I've even got a few days to recover before I have to face the grind of the office again on Tuesday. If I knew what was good for me, I would've taken a vacation from the Orioles as well. I wasn't enough of a masochist to watch their games, save for the odd inning here or there, but I was still getting score updates via text message and that was torment enough. The Birds lost five out of six during my time in Ocean City, but I also heard some disappointing news about a former Oriole. A few days ago the Arizona Diamondbacks released Melvin Mora, which could signal the end of the 39 year-old infielder's noteworthy career. It's hard to imagine teams having much interest in a player of his age, particularly since he put up a .228/.244/.276 batting line in 42 games this year and failed to hit a single home run. He has 24 strikeouts and has walked only twice.
If this truly is the end of the road for Melvin, he has plenty to celebrate. There aren't a whole lot of players who stick around for 13 seasons after making their big league debut at age 27. As it stands, he has a .277 lifetime average with 1,503 hits, 171 home runs, and 754 RBI. He was an All-Star in 2003 and 2005, and earned a Silver Slugger as the American League's top-hitting third baseman in 2004; that year, he placed second behind Ichiro with a .340 average and led all A.L. batters with a .419 on-base percentage. That's certainly more than the O's could have hoped for when they acquired him as one of the pieces in a deadline deal with the Mets for Mike Bordick in 2000.
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