Oriolesfan44

BALTIMORE -- Potential can be a dirty word in baseball, particularly when it provides an excuse for current frailties with the promise of future production. The Orioles won't call themselves a rebuilding team, but they're counting on a mostly homegrown rotation to help end a nine-season streak of losing records.

Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera and Adam Loewen are a huge part of Baltimore's next step forward -- whenever that might occur. Both Cabrera and Bedard have spent the past few seasons adjusting to the big leagues, with varying degrees of success. Loewen got his first taste of the Majors in 2006, and he is still in a fragile stage of development.

O's pitching coach Leo Mazzone will be closely monitoring their progress all spring and throughout the season. The veteran loves the young arms on his staff, but he knows it may take time to coax better results. In fact, one of his late-season comments about Cabrera could apply to his entire rotation.

"It's not completely lit, but it's turning on. There's no coach in the world smart enough to predict anything like that," Mazzone said, speaking about when the switch would turn in Cabrera's career. "Like we've told Daniel, he doesn't need to be taught any more pitches. He's got a good fastball, a good breaking ball and a good changeup. We don't have to mess with his mechanics anymore -- they're solid now. He just has to go out and execute.

"Sometimes, guys try too hard to be great. All we want him to do is be good."

Like many young pitchers, Cabrera was alternately good and bad last season. The 25-year-old struggled with his command for most of the early going, with a nine-walk and 10-strikeout start summing up the first half. He finished strong, though, and ended his season with a complete-game one-hitter in venerable Yankee Stadium.

Loewen, like Cabrera, had his share of success and struggles. The former first-round pick's first four big-league starts were all against former Cy Young Award winners, handily illustrating his lack of experience. But Loewen fared well for a pitcher who all but skipped Triple-A, and the Orioles are bullish on his immediate future.

"And the light switch is going on for Adam, too -- with still more to burn," Mazzone said in September. "You have to look at where both those young men are in their careers and think of a lot of good things happening for us. Then you have Erik Bedard, who's still young, and he's developed into one of the top young left-handers in the league."

With their rotation largely intact, the Orioles spent the winter stockpiling relievers to help hold potential leads. They also added veteran Jaret Wright, who worked with Mazzone in Atlanta, as their fifth starter. Wright and Kris Benson are the veterans who will be counted on to help balance out any youthful inconsistency.

Wright, a former phenom himself, came over from the Yankees in a trade for young reliever Chris Britton. Wright has had a host of arm injuries, but the Orioles think they can keep the right-hander healthy throughout the season. O's vice president of baseball operations Jim Duquette said Wright was a key acquisition.

"We weren't sure what was going to happen with him, but we liked him for a lot of reasons. And one of the biggest factors was his relationship with Leo," Duquette said right after the trade. "We think he's a definite upgrade to the rotation. He was hitting 93-95 [mph] at the end of the year. He's a proven veteran.

"He's won, he's pitched in the playoffs and he's a winner in terms of what he brings to the clubhouse."

Bedard was the unquestioned bright spot for Baltimore last season, when he set career highs in starts (33), wins (15), innings (196 1/3) and strikeouts (171). From early June to mid-September, the southpaw pitched five innings or more in 19 straight starts. That might not sound like much, but with Baltimore's shaky bullpen, it meant a lot.

Benson also worked deep in the game a lot, but his success was masked by some bullpen struggles. Benson worked at least seven innings and allowed two earned runs or less in 12 of his 27 starts, but he racked up a 6-3 record with three no-decisions in those outings. The Orioles, to a man, think he pitched better than his 11-12 record.

Now, Baltimore needs to find a way to convert that late work into winning on a more consistent basis.

"I think the key is getting our starters deeper to where you match up better," Mazzone said. "When we won our games last year, I think somebody said our ERA was 3.02. When we lost, it was 7.20. That's quite a gap, and you'd think in the American League that when you're winning it's 3.80 or 3.90, and when you're losing it's 5.80 or 5.90.

"In other words, we either dominated or we got blown out."

Perhaps the most important factor for the Orioles is who won't be starting in 2007. Baltimore cleared out Rodrigo Lopez, Bruce Chen and Russ Ortiz, who combined for a 9-28 record and a 6.50 ERA. That struggling trio worked 328 innings for the O's last season, which worked out to more than a fifth of the team's entire output.

Top pitching prospect Hayden Penn is on hand as the swingman and likely contingency option if anyone gets hurt. Penn had a disappointing September last season, but he still figures into Baltimore's rotation of the future.

The Orioles have a lot at stake in their young starters, and Perlozzo will be graded on how well they progress. For his part, Perlozzo can look at the starting staff and see trouble for the rest of the American League.

"Kris Benson and Erik Bedard were pretty steady giving us later-in-the-game innings," Perlozzo said at the Winter Meetings. "We think Daniel's hopefully turning a corner [and] can go deep into the game for us. Adam Loewen, and I've said this before, wasn't even on the radar screen [last] year, and he has turned into one of our young kids who everybody loves.

"So just the fact that we have some depth going later in the game, where maybe I don't have to stretch somebody out an inning longer than he should [may help]."

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Cal Ripken HOF 2007