Orioles play dumb, lose big to Jays 13-6

The Orioles lost big the to Blue Jays tonight 13-6 as Bud Norris continues his early season struggles. The game began auspiciously enough for Norris who cruised through the first inning without allowing a base runner.

Then came the second inning which started with a lead off home run from Edwin Encarnacion. Then came a double and an error to move the runner to third base, a walk, and another walk to load the bases. The nine hitter Ryan Goins stood in and singled to right field scoring two runs and the runners advanced on an overthrow from Travis Snider. Next, Jose Reyes hit a ground ball to the shortstop and the throw came home. However, Caleb Joseph missed the tag, which was upheld on review, 4-0 Jays. Next, Joseph attempted to catch Reyes stealing, but his throw tailed into the runner and trickled into center fielder. The runner on third scored, 5-0. Finally, Josh Donaldson doubled off of the wall to score Reyes, 6-0. Norris was able to get Jose Bautista and Encarnaicion to fly out to end the inning as the Jays batted around and scored six runs.

The bad pitching and mediocre defense would continue all night. The Jays would add three more runs off of Norris in the 3rd. Kevin Pillar had the big single which scored two runs off of Norris. Brian Matusz replaced Norris and promptly gave up another single to Ryan Goins which scored another run, 9-2 Jays. That ended Bud's night at 2.1 innings pitched, 6 hits, 9 earned runs, 3 walks, 2 strike outs, and 1 home run.

The game went much better for Jays starter Mark Buehrle. He recorded clean innings in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th innings. The only real damage the Orioles did was in the second inning which included a run scoring double by Ryan Flaherty and a Steve Pearce RBI ground out to make it 6-2 at the time. The mini comeback was immediately erased by Bud Norris' terrible 3rd inning.

The 5th inning meant more runs for the Jays. Brian Matusz still on the mound and forced into long man duty gave up a double, a single, and a sac fly to make it 10-2. The Orioles came back in the top of the 6th to add one more run on a Manny Machado sac fly to make it 10-3, but the Orioles could not put together a big enough rally to ever make the game truly competitive.

The bottom of the sixth inning began with another Encarnacion home run that was absolutely devastated to the 5th deck of the Rogers Centre, 11-3. Delmon Young did not even turn around to look at the ball, although that might have been Delmon not noticing the ball was hit in his general direction per the usual. Matusz, after giving up two more hits, gave way to Jason Garcia who closed out the inning without allowing anymore runs.

The top of the 7th brought a little more life from the Orioles after a lead off walk and single. An error allowed a runner to score, 11-4, and with runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out Adam Jones lined a ball to center field. However, Kevin Pillar caught the sinking line drive on an incredible dive. Then he popped up and threw out Chris Davis at second base, double play, inning over with no more runs.

After early overthrows and errors, the bottom of the 7th inning brought even more stupidity out. After a Josh Donaldson double, Jose Bautista stood at the plate against Jason Garcia. Garcia uncorked a fastball that went behind Bautista's back. A most likely unintentional mistake by a 22 year old pitcher who had already hit a guy today and hit one yesterday. Nonetheless, throwing behind a guy is never taken lightly and Bautista has been know to be a bit sensitive about things such as these. Two pitches later he clobbered a home run to left center field. He took his sweet time getting out of the box waiting for Garcia to turn around so Bautisa could flip his bat in Garcia's face. Then, in succession, Steve Pearce, Ryan Flaherty, and Adam Jones all took their turns berating Bautista for showing up their young pitcher. It seemingly irked Jones the most of all as he continued yelling at Bautista the rest of the inning and on the way into the dugout. This will most likely not be the end of this garbage for the rest of the series and probably the rest of this season. Only in baseball do you react like a child for having your masculinity challenged.

The rest of the game went on without much interest, the Orioles added two more runs in the top of the 8th inning on a RBI ground out by Machado and Travis Snider scoring on a wild pitch. Otherwise, Brad Brach closed the game out for the Orioles as David Lough came in to replace Adam Jones most likely to protect him from himself and from the Blue Jays.

Did that recap make you feel any better? I asked Mark if I could just post pictures of my dog, he didn't go for it. Anyways, the Orioles look to rebound tomorrow night at 7:05pm with Ubaldo Jimenez on the mound to face off against Aaron Sanchez. Hopefully, it'll be less dumb.