The Stomach-Punch: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5.

Words... failing me...

I mean... on one hand, with the way that the Orioles had been winning games all season, you kind of had a feeling that they might regress. You can't be THAT good in one-run games all season long. You can't keep getting that lucky. We were grossly outperforming our Pythagorean record for a good portion of the season. There's no way that Jim Johnson's a sub-2.00 ERA pitcher. Breezy can only make saves interesting so often before he ends up getting burned by them. In the back of my mind, I knew that they were going to even out, start losing one-run games, start having teams mount comebacks on them, etc. Law of averages and all that.

But the Blue Jays? In three consecutive games beating the O's by one run? Two of them were blown leads? Are you fucking kidding me?

The game started out well enough for the O's. Kakes doubled with one out in the first, and after being moved to third on a Millar ground-out, Huffnpuff drove him home with a single to put the O's up 1-0. In the second, Mora started the surge with a double. Jay Payton's corpse followed with a double of his own to make it 2-0 Orange Birds. Jonesy flew out, but Payton's corpse was smart enough to tag up and move to third, which made it possible for Brandon Fahey's dribbler to first to score him to make it 3-0.

Meanwhile, Guts was cruising. He retired the first seven batters he faced, and didn't face more than three batters in an inning until the fourth. Inglett led that inning off with a single, followed by a sacrifice by Captain Gritty David Eckstein that moved Inglett to second. Guthrie threw a pitch that Ramon didn't get a glove on (it looked like it kinda just kept curving away from Ramon) that allowed Inglett to move to third. Rios drove him in with a ground-out. That was the theme for the evening for the Blue Jays, by the way. They'd do this RBI ground-out thing a lot. Guthrie got out of the inning still ahead 3-1.

They'd do it just two innings later, in fact. Lind doubled to right. Inglett grounded out to move Lind to third. Captain Gritty grounded out to plate Lind and make it 3-2.

The O's would add insurance runs in the seventh, though. Or at least, they should've been insurance runs. Brian Tallet relieved starter and former Oriole John Parrish and promptly gave up a single to Roberts. Kakes grounded out to move Roberts over to second. That would end Tallet's day and start Brandon League's nightmare of an inning. He got the second out via a Millar pop-out. Then he intentionally walled Huffnpuff, because well, he's redhot. He unintentionally walked Ramon to load the bases. Then Melvin Mora came through with runners in scoring position, as he's done for most of the year. That drove in two runs to make it 5-2. A three run lead going into the 8th with JJ and Breezy to follow? Feeling okay about it...

But JJ screwed it up. Or at least started the fuck-up. Lyle Overbay singled to start the inning off. Lind doubled to center to put runners on second and third with no outs. Then the ground-out parade started. Inglett grounded out to score Overbay and advance Lind. Captain Gritty grounded out to score Lind and make it 5-4. Johnson retired Lind on (c'mon... guess...) a ground out to end the inning... but a one-run lead with the way things have gone lately... you just knew.

And you were right. Flat Breezy came in and promptly struck out Marco Scutaro, who was pinch hitting for Matt Stairs. Rod Barajas then singled and left the game so John McDonald could run for him. Scott Rolen, who killed us on Monday night, doubled to put runners on second and third with one out. So baseball strategy tells you to intentionally walk the next guy to set-up the double play. Baseball strategy appeased... Breezy intentionally walked Rick Dempsey's nephew (if you've watched MASN during this series, you know just how much Rick Dempsey loves to name drop Gregg Zaun... and shouldn't that be the other way around?!) to load up the bases with one out. Lyle Overbay hit a fly ball to center deep enough to score McDonald to tie the game. And then? Well, Flat Shitty gave up the game winning single to Adam Lind, scoring Scott Rolen from second. Blue Birds 6 - Orange Birds 5.

And that? That completed the sweep at the hands of the last-place Blue Jays. Yeah, it's safe to say it hasn't looked THAT bad at any point this season. The O's haven't won a series since the Cubs series.

1-2 vs. Washington
2-2 vs. Kansas City
1-2 vs. Texas
0-3 vs. Toronto

The painful thing? The only game that the Orioles SHOULDN'T have won was probably the 11-10 game against Texas, where they had to score 5 runs in the last two innings to make it respectable. You could probably make an argument for Tuesday's game against Toronto as well. So instead of being 4-9 over the last 13 games, they should be 11-2. Or 10-3 at worst. That's tough. That's a 6-game swing at a minimum. That's the difference between being 5-games over .500 and a game under it.

The O's have also dropped seven straight 1-run games. There's just no way to accurately describe how much that shit hurts. It's... well, it's like being stabbed in a random body part one time per day for a week straight. You start to expect it after a while, but it still catches you off guard, and it still fucking hurts. And by the way... this loss moves us into last place. Yeah. Fucking last place.

At least Jonesy, Kakes, Huffnpuff, and Roberts are all hitting well. And Guts is pitching well. Otherwise, it may be getting close to find a ledge to throw myself from time.

Yeah yeah, I know this isn't rock bottom. I remember 2005 quite well. I remember 2003. Hell, I remember 1988. But with as much optimism that has been built up over the first three months of the season, watching the team start to go flat and lose games that they should be winning really, really hurts. These aren't games they were losing in June. That's a fact.