The Thursday afternoon Orioles game thread: vs. Blue Jays, 12:05

The Joaquapocalypse is nigh. Chaos shall reign in its wake. Unless it isn't actually nigh. They can't really agree on a forecast. One thing on which all agree, however, is that yesterday it looked like enough of a mess that the Orioles decided to move up this particular game to the very strange time of 12:05pm.

Same as last night, the Blue Jays are blatantly not giving a crap about winning this game, at least as far as their starting lineup of position players are concerned.

Perhaps there's no benefit to them in attempting to do so, or rather, the benefit is outweighed by the risk of playing their regulars in a cold, wet mess of a baseball game when the postseason is nearly upon them. They have an edge of one game over the Royals for the top seed in the American League, meaning that potentially every round of the postseason - if they make it that far - would have the extra game in their home stadium.

Or maybe the Jays decided with the career Oriole killer Drew Hutchison starting, that was all they would need. He has mostly destroyed this team in his career and in fact, may solely owe his continued presence in a big league rotation to his performance against the Orioles. That could be a slight exaggeration on my part. Also, the last time the O's saw him, on Sept. 4, they blasted him for six runs in five innings, including two home runs hit by Chris Davis. Let it be so again.