On Saturday night, the Orioles lost for the 56th time in 80 chances as Jon Lester and the Boston Red Sox dominated them, 9-3.
Lester, the tall southpaw for Boston, upped his record 12-0 against the Orioles lifetime as he went seven innings and allowed only one run. He won fairly easy as his offense hammered Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie who lost his tenth game of the season, along with an ineffective bullpen.
Guthrie was not sharp at all and he lasted a tad over four innings, plus gave up six runs in his night on the mound. The Red Sox didn’t have all their marquee players at the plate due to injury, but the old reliables – Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and J.D. Drew – all did the damage.
The Orioles, well, played like they have all season on Saturday and was just a microcosm of a bigger picture. Errors (two on the night), poor play, and no plan against Jon Lester did them in.
The Red Sox plated four runs in the bottom of the first inning and it was ‘checkmate’ for the Orioles from there. Baltimore had a chance in the first to jump on Lester, but with one out and the bases loaded, Adam Jones came to the plate and grounded into a bases loaded double play.
The Orioles did add get two runs in the top of the ninth as Jake Fox homered, although it required the use of instant replay by the umpires for the call.
There’s not much more to say about Saturday, but it was a joy to see Juan Samuel show some fire in the bottom of the eighth inning and getting tossed for his 1st career ejection.
He was thrown out at home plate by umpire Mike Everitt for arguing balls and strikes while reliever Frank Mata was on the mound. I never think much comes out of arguing calls, but it makes for a good show, and plus with Baltimore being so bad, it’s just nice to see someone – even down runs at the time – still show passion.
In addition, after the game, Samuel took it out on his players according to the Baltimore Sun.
Once the rest of the team joined the manager in the clubhouse following the 9-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox, Samuel gave them a stern lecture about their sloppy play, which continued into last night’s game with two more errors and several other plays that should have been made.
“We definitely need to get better,” said Samuel whose team has made 14 errors in the last 12 games and has four straight multi-error games. “Even though last week we won some games, we did not play good defense. We have to pick it up. We need to do all those little things if we’re going to compete in this division and win some ball games.”
Asked if he has been happy with the team’s effort, Samuel said, “Not tonight at all. It’s been good, don’t get me wrong, but we need to show up every day and play a professional ball game.”
Someone needed to do it. This team has been awful and the players need to be held accountable. No one expected the Orioles to have 24 wins almost at the halfway point of the season.
At this point, while wins and losses still matter – a game has to be played with fundamentals, a clue of what you’re doing out there and some passion.
Really, most fans just want to see the players go at it hard and be competitive. It’s a real down and pathetic to see the team done in a game before it’s even halfway over. It’s been the theme with the Baltimore Orioles again, again and again.
That has to stop.
