Before kicking off his high school sports coverage when tryouts commence on Aug. 13, Dave revisits his beloved Baltimore Orioles and a bold prediction he made earlier on this spring.

I know I’m still fairly green as a columnist, but one thing I know to do is be accountable for what I write and man up if I simply get something wrong.

With that said, I remind you of a column I penned way back in April, declaring this a new day in Baltimore Orioles lore. At the time, the Birds stood at 6-2 and I was convinced they were ready to turn the corner and break free from their stretch of 13 straight losing seasons.

Boy, did I jump the gun on that one.

Unfortunately for me and the Orioles (now 44-66), the baseball season is 162 games, although I never anticipated that the last time the club would boast a winning record would be on April 14 when the team stood at 6-5.

Forget the post season, forget wild card contention and forget meaningful summer baseball for the first time in years.

The O’s haven’t been at or above .500 since May 26. They haven’t won a series since taking two of three from the Reds six weeks ago. They haven’t won more than two games in a row in over two months.

So, where did it all go wrong?

Well, before I start ranting about that, let’s sum up what’s gone right. It’ll only take a sentence.

J.J. Hardy turned out to be a great free agent signing at shortstop, Adam Jones is having his best season as a pro and Jim Johnson has been a solid late inning reliever.

That about sums it up.

To look at where the Orioles have failed, well, let’s just go back to my April column.

“For the first time in far too long, the Orioles have a lineup that resembles a major league team. The combination of young talent in Nick Markakis, Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Felix Pie…”

Aside from the ever-improving Jones, the other three have disappointed. Markakis has turned into a singles hitter who’s batting below his career average, Pie has yet to homer this season and is proving to have no baseball instincts whatsoever and after a decent start to the season, Wieters drove in 10 runs in June and July combined.  

“…along with proven commodities such as Vladimir Guerrero, Derrek Lee, Mark Reynolds and (perhaps most importantly) Brian Roberts is going to give opposing pitchers fits.”

Signed to provide the Orioles with their first legitimate clean-up hitter in decades, Guerrero is on pace for career lows in every major offensive category. Lee spent the majority of the season batting in the low .200s before being dealt to the upstart (yet now fading) Pittsburgh Pirates. To his credit, Reynolds has been the O’s best power-hitter with 24 home runs, but he also leads the club in strikeouts (120) and fielding errors (21). (Sometimes it looks like he’s swinging with a garden hose and fielding with an oven mitt.)

Still, the biggest head scratcher has been Roberts, who hasn’t played a game since May 16 when he suffered a concussion and has been dealing with migraine headaches and other concussion symptoms ever since. Roberts is a 10-year Oriole vet and a two-time All-Star, but he’s played just 98 games over the last two seasons and is proving he can no longer be relied upon.

However, while the O’s offense has sputtered (especially earlier on in the season) it’s been the lack of pitching that’s put the hitters in deep holes game after game.

Here’s what I said back in April. Talk about a jinx:

“Pitching wise, the O’s finally appear to have the depth of young, talented arms that they’ve talked about having for years … Aside from veteran leader Jeremy Guthrie, the O’s have young pitchers (Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, and Zach Britton) who, in addition to their talent, have confidence and believe in themselves.”

Here’s a telling stat, Guthrie has been the most consistent pitcher for the Orioles this season and he’s 5-15 on the year. However, it’s the young arms that provide the most concern.

Matusz finished 2010 as undoubtedly the organization’s best pitcher, earning AL Rookie of the Month last August. After missing the first two months of 2011 with an injury, he’s gone 1-4 with an astronomical 8.77 ERA in six starts and admitted to reporters that he didn’t work hard enough in the offseason with his conditioning. Really? (That'd be like me telling my editors I forgot what grammar was over the summer.) Now, having been demoted to Triple-A Norfolk, he’s being shelled by minor league hitters.

Britton appeared to be a possible Rookie of the Year candidate after finishing April with a 4-1 record and 2.84 ERA. Now, he struggles to make his way out of the first inning. Though he finally did so Friday night, in his previous two starts, Britton had surrendered a total of 17 runs over a combined one inning of work. His last win came all the way back on June 8.

The 23-year old Tillman has spent about half of the year having his most ineffective season in Norfolk after being one of the Triple-A club’s most reliable pitchers in his two prior stints. In ten big league starts, the right hander is 2-4 with an ERA over 5.00 and has struggled to command both his fastball and curveball.

Of the four young starters, Arrieta, has been the most consistent, sadly, going 10-8 with a 5.05 ERA. However, like many of his colleagues, the 25-year-old has struggled to work deep into ball games and battled control issues. Reports are that the right-hander will be shut down for the remainder of the season to have surgery on a bone spur in his right elbow.

Sigh.

If the O’s are ever going to compete in the AL East, these guys absolutely must find a way to rebound from the regressions they've made this season.

Speaking of the AL East, here’s one more baseless point from my previous column:

“They’ve put together a team where the Red Sox and Yankees (or anyone else for that matter) can no longer say, ‘Ah, we’re heading to Baltimore, mark down a series win.’ Starting this year, the O’s will no longer be the soft spot in anyone’s schedule—Buck Showalter simply isn’t going to stand for that.”

As of right now, the O’s are 1-9 versus New York, 3-6 versus Boston, 4-7 versus Toronto and 6-6 vs. Tampa Bay. That’s a combined 14-28 in the American League East.

Sounds pretty soft to me. Settle in for losing season No. 14.