Orioles play awful baseball, get blown out by Blue Jays, 10-2

If you only look at the final score, it's hard to believe that the Orioles had the lead in Tuesday's game against the Blue Jays as late as the sixth inning and were tied as late as the seventh inning. Bad things happened then, boneheaded baseball, awful defense, a ceremonial flyover by the BABIP dragon that left a streak of flame and destruction across the playing field. That last one was a metaphor.

For some reason, the Jays are just the Orioles' kryptonite. That team treads water at or just below .500; during the game on MASN, Jim Hunter dropped a stat that was something like the Jays have been within one game of .500 either way for 28 games this year. They are now 17-17 - but they're 6-2 against the Orioles.

Their bad players are only good against the Orioles, like Tuesday's starter, Mark Buehrle, who has allowed 17 earned runs in 19.1 innings against teams who aren't the Orioles. In three starts against the O's, Buehrle has allowed only seven runs in 18 innings of work. The previous games, the Orioles at least got some hits, eventually scratched out a few runs that ended up not mattering as the result of some kind of pitching meltdown. Tuesday, they got the pitching meltdown, but not the hits or the runs.

For six innings, it was a fine enough start from O's starter Chris Tillman. He came out for the seventh inning having thrown in the realm of 90 pitches. The bottom of the Jays lineup was due up. Those are the guys you should get out. Tillman instead gave up his third hit of the night to career .214 hitter Ryan Goins.

That's bad. So is getting a double play ball off the bat of .191 hitter Justin Smoak and bungling the opportunity to get two outs. Due to shift shenanigans, a ground ball to Chris Davis at first base had the chance to turn into a 3-5-1 GIDP that would have erased the runner. Instead, the relay throw coming back from Manny Machado went wide of Tillman, who stood at first base and reached towards the ball with the cement block strapped to his hand.

Predictably, the ball bounced off of Tillman's poor attempt at fielding it and, instead of hitting Smoak in the face (which slow-motion replays should very nearly happened) the deflected ball bounced into the Orioles dugout, putting the go-ahead run in scoring position. Machado should have made a better throw. Tillman should have fielded the damn ball. Neither of these things happened. Machado now has eight errors on the season.

What followed was the kind of awful BABIP luck that you can only shake your head when you see it. Orioles fans got familiar enough with that stuff during the ALCS last year. Josh Donaldson grounded a two-bounce ball that had eyes instead of seams and snuck beyond the reach of both J.J. Hardy at short and Steve Pearce at second base. The run scored. The Orioles trailed.

What followed THAT was purely self-inflicted wounds. Tillman was chased from the game when Jose Bautista hit a ground rule double into the O's bullpen. That saved a run, momentarily, at least until Tommy Hunter came into the game and went boom. That earned run was the first that Hunter had allowed after eight outings without an earned run, yet even with that streak of scoreless games his season ERA is still 4.85.

When the dust settled, both of the inherited runners had scored and Edwin Encarnacion unleashed his parrot home run trot for the second time in the game and the seventh on the season. Four of his seven home runs have come against the Orioles.

Tillman ate five earned runs even despite the error giving Smoak an extra base due to the "you can't assume the double play" rule, which is dumb. On the other hand, I can hardly argue that he deserved better. He fell apart and his five runs on nine hits in 6.2 innings reflects that. His customary early-season struggles continue. After this, his seventh start, he has a 6.34 ERA.

A bunch of other stupid stuff happened after that, the sum total of which meant that T.J. McFarland took four unearned runs as a result of two more errors by the team. I have not the heart to tell you more. For me the grief is still too near.

The O's only had five hits all game, which, goat fornication on the part of the defense and some pitchers aside, is not going to win you very many baseball games. Machado collected three of the Orioles' five hits. Jimmy Paredes drove in the O's two runs with a third-inning single. He's got 17 RBI now, third on the team in that category.

Wednesday brings the team a chance to win the series in the rubber game. Miguel Gonzalez and Aaron Sanchez are the scheduled starting pitchers for a 7:05 first pitch.