DWI's and Striking Out Guys

Remember your first beer? I bet it was gross. Do you know what else is gross?....if you drove a motor vehicle after you guzzled down that bubbly beverage. We all know that driving drunk is illegal, but who does that stop anyway? I mean, it seems like your hear about it all of the time. Just look at sports, these professional athletes are speeding and swerving all over the place. Why does this happen you ask? Maybe its the sense of entitlement one gets being a professional athlete, or maybe its in our human nature to believe that we are immortal and are "really good drunk drivers". In any case, another episode of this foul behavior has made its way into the Oriole's clubhouse as one of its rising young prospects, Troy Patton, was arrested a little over a week ago on drunk driving charges. Patton is a 25 year old left handed pitcher in the minor league system with a strong upside but is overshadowed within the organization by other pitchers such as Zach Britton and Brandon Erbe. Some may say that Patton effectively lowered himself even further down the depth chart due to his run in with the law, but I say hold your horses....let's look at history.

Patton joins some fine company upon being charged with a DWI as other notable pitchers such as Dwight Gooden, Esteban Loaiza, Joba Chamberlein and Dontrelle Willin have been charged with the very same illegal conduct. Now, if history serves us right, Patton can do one of two things. Patton can follow the decorated path of Dwight Gooden and Esteban Loaiza, who together tally 6 all star appearances and 2 Cy Young awards, or he can go down the not so decorated path of Dontrelle Willis and Joba Chamberlein, who together have a history of being solid but only for a short period of time. I should mention though that technically the jury is still out on these two. In any case, I like my percentage here that Patton has a 50% chance of being a great success using my theory. He will have his work cut out for him though as Patton has about 6 other pitchers under the ages of 26 to compete with in the Orioles young contingent of arms. Here are the young pitchers to look out for this year and hopefully for years to come. Brian Matuscz, Jake Arietta, Brad Bergeson, Chris Tillman, Zach Britton, Brandon Erbe and of course Troy Patton.

Side Note: In his 6 seasons in A, AA and AAA professional minor league baseball, Patton has a career 3.42 ERA.