Baltimore Orioles 6, Toronto Blue Jays 5: Five homers overshadow Zach Britton's lousy day

The Orioles had hoped to stretch rotation hopeful Zach Britton out to today, but instead he got knocked out of the game with two outs in the second. He sandwiched two walks around a single to load the bases in the first inning, then gave up a bases-clearing double to J.P. Arencibia to put the Orioles in an early 3-0 hole. He didn't give up any more runs in the inning but did face eight batters total.

The second inning was no better for Britton. Maicer Izturis doubled to lead off the inning and two batters later Emilio Bonafacio homered to give the Jays a 5-0 lead. After the homer Britton gave up another double and another walk, and after getting the second out via ground out he was replaced with Zech Zinicola.

Blue Jays starter Jeremy Jeffress got through a scoreless first inning despite a double by Brian Roberts and a walk from Matt Wieters, but he couldn't escape the mighty bats of the Orioles in the second inning. J.J. Hardy and Nolan Reimold hit back-to-back homers to start the inning, then with two outs Nate McLouth added a solo shot of his own. Jeffress then proceeded to walk Roberts and hit Adam Jones with a pitch, but struck out Wieters for the third out.

The O's faced a new pitcher, Guillermo Moscoso, in the third inning. The results were pretty much the same. Chris Davis homered and Reimold added on his second home run of the day. The only run to not come from a homer for the Orioles was their sixth and final run as Brian Roberts knocked in Manny Machado, who had singled and stolen second base.

After the third inning, the fireworks were over. Zinicola, Darren O'Day, Jim Johnson, and T.J. McFarland didn't allow a run for the rest of the day. O'Day was fantastic, pitching two innings with four strikeouts, a walk, and no hits. For the Jays, after Moscoso came out of the game Mickey Storey pitched two perfect innings and Dave Bush gave up three hits over three shutout innings to end the game.

There was a scary moment in the sixth inning when Roberts fouled a ball off of his foot and was in obvious pain to those watching. Richie Bancells came out but Roberts finished the AB. He did come out after that but Buck was removing most of the regulars, so hopefully he'll be fine. After the way he's hit this spring it'd be tough to see him injured with just two weeks to go.

It was fun to see the O's bats go homer happy today, but it was a tough break for Britton, who is fighting for a spot in the rotation. The good news is that, according to his quotes, he was working on his four-seam fastball, and there were times when he could have gone to the sinker to get a guy out but didn't. That's spring training, folks.