In a result that surprised no one, the Orioles fell to the Blue Jays tonight 8-4. When the pitching matchup is Roy Halladay vs. Mark Hendrickson, I can't imagine any O's fan felt confident that their team would pull out a win.
The game started wonderfully enough, when, after an Adam Jones double, Nicky Markakis hit a home run to right field, giving the Orioles a 2-0 league on Halladay and the Blue Jays. After that, however, Halladay got himself together. He allowed multiple baserunners in the 2nd and 4th but didn't give up any more runs until the 8th when Huff singled in Jones and Mora had an RBI grounded out to score Markakis. It was evident Roy was losing his stuff, but he got out of the inning and ended his day allowing 4 runs on 10 hits. And honestly, that's a pretty good day off of Halladay for an opposing team. But it wasn't enough thanks to the O's pitching.
Mark Hendrickson started off well enough, and for a brief second I thought he might pull off a rare effective start. He got through the first three innings allowing just two hits and he looked good. He came back to earth in the fourth inning, allowing 4 runs to the Blue Jays. Former Oriole Kevin Millar was right in the thick of things with an RBI double and a a run scored. Mark pulled himself together to get out of the inning and finished the fifth with no more damage.
Dennis Sarfate relieved Hendrickson and didn't look great. He allowed 2 runs in 1.2 innings and left with an apparent injury. No word on what happened.
Chris Ray pitched the 8th, giving up 2 runs on 3 hits to effectively put the game out of reach for the O's in the 9th. Thanks, Chris!
Not too fun of a game to watch, but pretty much what I'd expect. I honestly thought Halladay would shut the O's completely down so at least they got to him a little bit.
For those of you not lucky enough to hear the MASN broadcast for this game, your announcers were Gary Thorne and Rick Dempsey. The Demper was in an even crazier state of mind than usual, as he waxed on for minutes about how Dennis Sarfate should be the #2 starter on the team (even as Sarfate was coughing up runs in relief), causing Gary to just remark, "Interesting." Poor Gary.
One last thing. Prior to the game I predicted Kevin Millar would own the Orioles tonight. In fact, he was 2-5 with a 2B, 1 R, and 3 RBI.