The Wednesday night Orioles game thread: at Astros, 8:10

Tonight, the Orioles will be facing Astros starting pitcher Lance McCullers. I have no idea whether the Astros McCullers is related to Carson McCullers, who wrote the 1940 novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, but, being as I have never encountered another McCullers, that's what I think about when I see his name.

That particular novel is among the saddest things I've ever read, so it is an appropriate topic for consideration in the midst of the Orioles' present losing streak. It is a sad book full of isolation and loneliness, and how these things grind even good people down over time in a worn down Southern mill town in the middle of the 1930s.

One young girl has a promising future because she is smart, only then her younger brother accidentally shoots a little girl with a BB gun and the victim's family decides to sue the promising girl's family. Guess what, no more school for you, now you have to go get a job to help the family pay this great debt. She loved to play music and has no time for it any more.

There is also the deaf-mute man, who seems to be friendly to everybody, only that's actually because they just project what they want him to be onto him. I guess a person who can't talk makes a good sounding board. The mute man has one friend in the world, another mute man who cannot read. No one actually takes the time to get to know him and he is the loneliest person of all despite being around people fairly often. He ends up shooting himself.

Anyway, maybe the Orioles will avoid losing five in a row.