Loving the Orioles lineup for 8/14

Per Roch Kubatko:

Brian Roberts - 2B
Adam Jones - CF
Nick Markakis - RF
Aubrey Huff - 1B
Nolan Reimold - DH
Matt Wieters - C
Melvin Mora - 3B
Felix Pie - LF
Cesar Izturis - SS

Tillman is on the mound tonight, facing Jered Weaver and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Some quick points:

-Okay, yes, it sucks that Huff is still batting fourth.

-I'm glad Wieters has been moved up in the lineup. He's earned it, and Mora and the others haven't. With any luck he'll see better pitches to hit.

-This is the second straight start for Pie. I think he needs to get a lot of starts over the remainder of the season. For one, Reimold is a bad defensive left fielder, and while Pie has poor instincts in the field, he is fast and has a pretty good glove and arm. Secondly, while Pie has never hit well at any point in his major league career, I think a lot of that can be contributed to how sparsely and sporadically his playing time has been: Yes, he's not the second coming of Carlos Beltran like he was projected to be all those years ago, but you can't give a guy 100 at-bats one season, 75 another, and then say his performance over those ABs is conclusive. Jered Weaver, tonight's starter for the Angels, is a flyball pitcher as well.

-Reimold has been a successful #2 hitter because he walks so much, but I like him batting fifth as well. What is this team's biggest strength this season? Doubles. You want to have athletic, speedy guys on the bases when your team is hitting a lot of doubles, so that they can score from first. Reimold walks a lot and takes pitches, but he isn't a speedy guy. He's more like Albert Pujols on the base paths: Doesn't run himself into outs, can often go first-to-third, but he isn't a burner.

Should be a good game.