Brad Bergesen, 2010 Topps Heritage #305

"Say", you're asking yourself, "how is Brad Bergesen doing in Japan this year? Funny you should ask! Bergy has appeared in 12 games for the Chunichi Dragons, including 10 starts. He's got a 2-2 record, a 3.75 ERA, and a 1.41 WHIP. In 50.1 innings pitched, he has walked 14 batters and struck out only 19. So...he's not exactly thriving. He's being outperformed by fellow O's exports Daniel Cabrera (4-2, 3.20 ERA, 1.31 WHIP with the Dragons) and Kam Mickolio (2.27 ERA, 15 saves, 1.18 WHIP with the Hiroshima Carp). But I guess it beats pitching in Reno, like he did for a chunk of 2012.

Brad Bergesen, 2004 Bowman Draft Picks #BDP80

Now that I finally dug out the card I was looking for a few days ago, we can all wave goodbye to Brad Bergesen, the 2009 rookie who had surprising success and then crashed back to Earth with all of the force of a Billy Butler line drive to the shin. Brad had been pushed further and further to the margins of the team's plans thanks to his own increasing ineffectiveness in 2010-2011, and spent most of this year at AAA Norfolk. Though the Orioles called him up as an emergency reliever last week, they sent him out the next day and tried to pass him through waivers. The Diamondbacks claimed him, reuniting him with fellow ex-Oriole David Hernandez in their bullpen. Au revoir, Bergy. We'll always have those mostly-magical 19 starts from the dark Dave Trembley days.

Brad Bergesen, 2010 Topps #423

The Brad Bergesen of 2009 has re-emerged of late, and it's about time. After emerging in his rookie season as the most consistently effective Orioles pitcher, his sophomore campaign seemed doomed from the beginning. A freakish shoulder injury incurred during a winter commercial shoot delayed his spring training, and from his first start he seemed hittable. His sinker wasn't sinking, his defense wasn't giving him as much support as it had before, and innings were unraveling in a hurry. You could see in his body language that he was having a confidence crisis, and being shunted to AAA Norfolk twice (and to the bullpen once) didn't do anything to help. After finishing at least six innings in each of his last dozen starts last year, he failed to complete even five innings in five of his first 11 starts in 2010. He took yet another pounding on July 26 in Toronto, giving up a career-high eight runs in five innings to leave his ERA at an unsightly 6.95 and his won-lost record at an ugly 3-9.

But Bergy showed signs of recovery his next time out, holding Kansas City to two runs in seven innings and missing out on a win when David Hernandez blew the save. Last Friday he was even better, yielding only a solo home run to Chicago's Gordon Beckham and leaving after seven innings in a tie game. Still, he couldn't snap that personal seven-game losing streak.

Tonight, Brad took matters into his own hands. With his offense again scuffling (the Birds pushed across only three runs on 13 hits), the young righthander breezed right through the Cleveland Indians, surrendering a single run on two hits, two walks, and a hit batter. He held the Tribe hitless until the fifth inning, when Luis Valbuena singled with two outs to bring home Shelley Duncan (who had walked earlier). All he did after that was set down the next 12 batters in order, including three straight strikeouts at the end of the string. Asdrubal Cabrera singled with two outs in the ninth to bring Shin-Soo Choo to the plate as the tying run, but Bergesen induced a fly ball to Adam Jones to earn the win and wrap up his second career complete game. It took him just 102 pitches, and he logged several innings of ten pitches or less. In his last three starts, he's lowered his earned run average by more than a full run.

Let's keep the good vibes going, okay Brad?

Brad Bergesen, 2009 Topps Heritage #522

After all of the hand-wringing I did yesterday, it’s a welcome relief to have a ready-made subject. Today is my sister’s 25th birthday. If you check through the archives (or just click this link), you’ll see that two years ago I commemorated her special day by featuring a scan of Dick Kryhoski, an Oriole from the 1950s who was also born on March 24. Of the hundreds of players who have passed through Baltimore in the past 56 years, Dick is the only one born on this day. If you’re morbidly inclined, Hall of Fame infielder George Kell is the only Oriole to die on this date (passing away one year ago today, in fact).

If I wanted to stretch it, I could have run a George Sisler card today, since one of the greatest hitters of the 1920s plied his trade for the St. Louis Browns team that moved to Charm City in 1954. But this blog ain’t called “Orioles Franchise Card O’ the Day”.

So instead I went with pitcher Brad Bergesen, one of five potential members of this year’s young and hungry O’s squad who will also celebrate the big 2-5 at some point during 2010. The others: pitchers David Hernandez and Troy Patton, and outfielders Adam Jones and Felix Pie. Bergy was far and away the most pleasant surprise to emerge last season, a control pitcher whose lack of a blistering fastball had caused him to be overlooked in favor of flashier prospects like Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman. When Brad followed up his 2008 Jim Palmer Award (given annually to the Orioles’ top minor league pitcher) with a great Spring Training, he bypassed those bigger names to become the first homegrown pitcher to get the callup in ’09. He responded by becoming the club’s most dependable starter and a dark-horse candidate for Rookie of the Year, until a scary-looking line drive from Kansas City’s Billy Butler severely bruised his leg and cost him the last two months of the season. His final numbers were encouraging, though: 7-5 with a 3.43 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP. He was second on the team in wins and first in most of the “rate” stats. On a staff desperate for innings-eaters, he made it through at least the sixth in 15 of his 19 starts, and only once did he pitch less than five and two-thirds (his second-ever major league start, when Texas knocked him out after four). After an odd offseason that saw him tweak his shoulder during a Mid-Atlantic Sports Network commercial shoot, he has bounced back with three solid Spring Training starts to give O’s fans optimism that he will be able to pick up where he left off last July.