Jays lose another to the Orioles

Orioles 8 Blue Jays 1

Remember when we were hitting, for a couple of weeks, and games were fun? That seems to have ended.

Again, one bad inning cost us a game.

Clayton Richard got through the first 3 innings with just a single and a walk again. Then came the fourth.

It started with a Justin Smoak error. Smoak, I felt, went after a ground ball that was would been a much easier play for the second baseman. He knocked it down but couldn’t corral it for a throw to the pitcher covering first. I would have been a much easier play for Biggio to make and throw to first. The next batter, Renato Nunez homered.

That was followed by a double off the bottom of the center field wall. I thought that Teoscar Hernandez gave up on it too early, I thought it was catchable. And then a ground ball to Vladimir Guerrero, that he dived for, spun, but dropped on the transfer for our second error of the game. A single and a double scored two more before we had our first out. And one more run would score. 5 runs in the inning, 2 earned. Clayton got hit hard in the inning, but a he could have been helped by his defense.

In all Clayton went 6 innings, allowed 7 hits, 3 earned (the Orioles scored one off him in the sixth), 1 walk and 2 strikeouts.

Nick Kingham allowed 2 runs in this 2.2 innings of work.

Charlie brought Derek Law into the game with 1 out left and us down 8-1. Why? I have no idea. Law walked a batter and got a strikeout.

Offensively, we only had 3 hits in 7 innings against Andrew Cashner. Cashner had a very good June, with a 1.44 ERA in 4 starts, and we got to see why today.

We got a run against him in the 4th. Vlad singled, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Biggio.

Beyond that we did nothing. Three singles total. One each for Vlad, Biggio and Luke Maile.

Vlad was taken out of the game in the 8th inning. I think it was just to let him rest, since the game was long over and let Jonathan Davis get into a game.

No Jays of the Days.

Richard had the Suckage number (-.260), but some of that was because the bad defense. You could give one to our batting order as well.

We had 175 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck led us to defeat.