By Joe Platania, PressBox Staff 

If you start hearing about a new statistical category known as "answerback runs," remember where you read it first.

By our definition, answerback runs are just what the name implies: runs scored by a given team in the half-inning immediately after one or more runs are allowed.

Can Miguel Tejada help the Orioles get more answerback runs in 2007? (Mitch Stringer/PressBox)

During an early-season road trip in Baltimore last year, former Orioles and current Seattle skipper Mike Hargrove told the media that scoring in such a fashion is one of the most important factors a club can have on its side if it wants to play winning baseball. 

We wanted to see if he was right. In 2006, we charted answerback runs during the entire Orioles' campaign to see if such a statistic had relevance. 

Here's what was found:

• During the month of April, the Orioles scored a whopping 72 answerback runs and allowed only 30. The result was a 13-13 record, a rare .500 stretch for a team that hasn't had a winning season since 1997.

• In May, Baltimore still held the upper hand in answerback runs, but only by a 45-40 margin. That tipped the balance into red numbers, resulting in a 12-15 record for the month.

• The downward trend continued throughout the summer and early autumn. In the season's final month alone, opponents racked up a devastating 67-25 advantage in answerback runs, completing the elimination of April's 42-run advantage. For the season, Baltimore scored 244 runs immediately after allowing scores, but yielded 255.

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If it weren't for interleague play, the Orioles would only have to make two West Coast swings in 2007. 

Baltimore plays at Los Angeles and Seattle as part of a three-team trip that begins in Kansas City on Memorial Day, May 28. The O's head to Seattle and Oakland for a two-city swing July 16-22.

However, with the American League East taking on the National League West in the interleague periods, the Orioles are also traveling to San Diego and Arizona for a six-game trip June 19-24. But that also means that Colorado and Arizona will be coming East to Oriole Park during a three-city homestand June 8-17.

As for the annual "Battle of the Beltways" against the Washington Nationals, the teams will play three in RFK Stadium May 18-20 and three more at Oriole Park June 12-14.

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The Orioles' weakness against left-handed pitching is one of many deficiencies this club has had through the past decade, but 2006 marked a nadir.

Baltimore notched just 16 wins against southpaws, the second-fewest in baseball. Only Kansas City and Pittsburgh (13 each) had fewer.

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Every sport implements rule changes from time to time for the purpose of promoting competitive balance and adjusting to ever-changing trends within the games.

In the opinion of most observers, what makes baseball unique is its resistance to such changes. However, MLB's rules committee last week approved the game's first rule changes in 11 years.

Among the highlights:

• Position players who scuff or otherwise tarnish the integrity of the baseball would be automatically ejected and suspended for 10 games. Pitchers can still receive a first-offense warning at the umpire's discretion if the arbiter feels the action wasn't intentionally done to alter the ball's action during a given pitch.

• If a game is halted due to inclement weather after the point when it becomes official and the score is tied at the time, no longer will the stats count and a new game be played from the beginning. From now on, the game will be listed as "suspended" and will be resumed at the point of suspension before the next game the two teams play at that site, or the visitor's site if there are no more scheduled games at the ballpark in question.

• One of the most exciting plays in baseball is the mad dash into the dugout to catch a foul ball. However, a new rule states that players are no longer allowed to step into the dugout, but they can still lean over the top step or the restraining railing, if there is one. Not all ballparks have such railings; Oriole Park made them a relatively new addition in 2005.

• It will now be legal for a runner heading to first base to run outside the marked three-foot lane in foul territory to reach the base. 

• On a dropped third strike, a batter heading back to the dugout may not run to first if he leaves the dirt circle thinking he is out. If he leaves the circle while running to first base, the play is legal.

• Regarding "walk-off" home runs: if one is hit with less than two outs, the batter may circle the bases and the homer will count even if a baserunner ahead of him doesn't complete the circuit. But if there are two outs, a runner who abandons the trip home will be called out and the home run will not count.

• A pitcher working out of the stretch position with no runners on base -- a rare practice -- will no longer have to come to a complete stop.

• When the batter is in the batter's box and ready for play and the pitcher has possession of the ball, the pitcher then has 12 seconds to deliver a pitch.

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It used to be that All-Star Games were held in American League parks in odd-numbered years and in NL stadia during even-numbered seasons. 

But because the 2006 game was held in Pittsburgh and this year's will be in San Francisco -- for unknown reasons -- that rotation will switch. Next year's midsummer classic is set for Yankee Stadium, as a sort of send-off to the historic park in its final season. The new version of Busch Stadium in St. Louis has the 2009 game.

There had been talk of a third All-Star Game in Baltimore to follow those held in 1958 and 1993. However, the earliest opening would now be 2010.  

Issue 2.8: February 22, 2007