Dan Connolly changes his mind about Dan Duquette:

Since we’re admitting our mistakes, I, for one, thought Dan Duquette needed to lay off the caffeine with his roster moves this year. Poor Ron Johnson, the manager at Triple-A Norfolk, needed a sharp pencil with a huge eraser all year.

And a lot of Duquette’s moves were unnecessary – Dontrelle Willis, Jamie Moyer, Miguel Tejada, JC Romero (twice). And yet so many of them, perhaps inexplicably, have helped win a game or more for the big club. Steve Pearce and Bill Hall are forgotten men, but they won games for the Orioles. Taylor Teagarden has done it twice. This week alone, Randy Wolf and Joe Saunders picked up victories.

Duquette was collecting players like trading cards (I’ll give you a Jai Miller and a Pat Neshek for a Matt Antonelli). It seemed laughable. And, um, no one is laughing anymore.

Duquette and Buck Showalter are a great combination. Dan gives Buck players who have at least one useful strength, and Buck finds the right spot for them.

So what Dan Duquette did with his limited resources is bring in players who do something well. Buck Showalter‘s history shows that the manager is very good at putting players in situations where they can succeed.

I still stand by my earlier assessment that .500 was the upper bound for this team. The O’s 581 runs scored and 600 runs allowed bear that out. Showalter worked his magic better than ever to put his players in a position to win all those one-run games, and now they are not only looking at the playoffs, but possibly hosting the first round.