MVN - Most Valuable Network

Baltimurder

In the newspaper world, of which I am a lapsed citizen, the number thirty is the traditional code that ends a perfect piece of copy.

In baseball world as we knew it Wednesday night, thirty is the number that represents the worst night of human rights violations in the long enough and, once upon a time, glorious enough history of baseball in Baltimore.

If that city has seen any crime wave equal to Wednesday night’s mass murder in Camden Yards, I’m willing to bet the the newspaper morgues (no pun intended) and the police records don’t show it.

You’d have thought the Texas Rangers took it personally that Daniel Cabrera opened the proceedings with three shutout innings, while the Orioles jumped Kason Gabbard for a swift first-inning run (a leadoff double by Brian Roberts, a prompt RBI single by Corey Patterson) and a two-out, two-run third (an RBI ground rule double by Nick Markakis, a followup RBI single by Miguel Tejada).

Because the Rangers brought their guns to bear in the fourth. Specifically, Jarrod Saltalamacchia with a two-run single and Ramon Vasquez with a three-run bomb. And the Orioles managed nothing but an uncashed leadoff bunt single in their half, and a likewise uncashed one-out single in the fifth, before the Rangers fired again in the sixth.

It made the Texas fourth resemble target practise. And it only began with Saltalamacchia ripping one over the left center field fence to roust Cabrera out of the game. Then, the Rangers shot the Oriole bullpen full of holes. The line for Brian Burres: single, wild pitch, walk, force at third, and single, Marlon Byrd going salami into the left field seats, strikeout, and five straight singles for three more runs. Enter Rudy Bell, up the pipe went another RBI single (Ian Kinsler), and it must have seemed as though Michael Young had taken pity on the home team by flying out to right to end it.

Gabbard in turn may have been merciful in his way when he walked Tejada to open the Oriole sixth and threw out Kevin Millar at first to let Tejada have second before wild pitching him to third. Then it was strikeout and ground out, and the Rangers cut them a break by going three up, three down in the top of the seventh, but the Orioles returned the favour against Wes Littleton in the bottom.

That’d teach them. The Orioles made three defencive switches for the top of the eighth (Tike Redman to center, Freddie Bynum to left, and Jay Payton to right). And the Rangers had three baserunners to open (single, two walks) before Frank Catalanotto and Kinsler rapped back-to-back RBI singles keeping the bases loaded. And Travis Metcalf, fresh up from Oklahoma [AAA], in the game at third, and batting in Young’s lineup slot, hit one into the left field seats, before Byrd’s followup walk put Bell out of his misery at last.

The good news for Paul Shuey—the veteran and former Los Angeles Dodger setup sentinel, who’d come out of retirement earlier this year—was that he punched out the side. All looking. The bad news was that between punchouts one and two came Nelson Cruz doubling Byrd to third, David Murphy singling Byrd home, and Saltalamacchia hitting another bomb, this one over the right center field fence.

And that was a mere warmup for the punishment rained onto the veteran in the top of the ninth. Shuey’s inning only began with the bases loaded and nobody out. (Back-to-back walks, base hit.) It continued with Botts doubling home Kinsler and Metcalf and, after Cruz’s swishout, Murphy singling Byrd home once again. This time, Saltalamacchia swished out but Vasquez hit his second three-run bomb of the night.

Five in the fourth, nine in the sixth, ten in the eighth, six in the ninth. It got to the point where the home audience practically demanded curtain calls any time the Orioles got the Rangers out. (Littleton got a save?!? What the hell was he saving?)

Never before, even in the worst of times, have the Orioles been disemboweled like this.

Not in their maiden Baltimore season, when they merely picked up where they’d left off as the St. Louis Browns the season before, going 54-100, with the worst beating they’d suffered on the year a 14-3 flogging from Bob Feller and the Cleveland Indians in game one of a doubleheader.

Not in the following season, when they’d finished seventh once again, with three less losses, and the worst beating they took was a 20-6 tattooing, in game two of a doubleheader, by the New York Yankees, who went 20-20 on the day (twenty runs, twenty hits) and whose oft-wild starter Tommy Byrne could have let the Orioles fungo and gotten away with it for the most part.

Not in 1956, in which the worst beating they took was a 12-0 thrashing from the Chicago White Sox, on a day they couldn’t solve Dick Donovan with a code breaker and a book of Cliff Notes.

Not in their first season at .500 in Baltimore, 1957, in which their worst beating was a 16-5 smackdown by the Boston Red Sox—on a day Ted Williams wasn’t in the lineup but Jimmy Piersall was, going 4-for-6 including a two-run bomb off that legendary relief ace Bill (The Isle of) Wight.

Not in 1988, during the absolute depths of that season-opening 21-game losing streak, which began with a 12-0 rout by the Milwaukee Brewers—on a day no individual Brewer drove in more than two, and Paul Molitor and Robin Yount went 1-for-4 each—and continued with, among others, losses of 12-1 (to Tom Candiotti and the Indians) and 13-1 (to Mark Gubicza and the Kansas City Royals, with Bo Jackson and Jim Eisenreich driving in three each).

Not even in 1996 when the Rangers opened a 26-7 can against them, and the Rangers needed (read carefully) a sixteen-run eighth inning against Armando Benitez, Jesse Orosco, and Manny Alexander to do it after building a 10-7 lead. And those Orioles ended up in the American League Championship Series, only to watch Jeffrey Maier win the series MVP.

And the Orioles picked just about the worst time, or the most embarrassing time, at least, to allow this kind of Baltimurder. The contract extension removing “interim” from Dave Trembley’s job title the night before probably hadn’t reached the commissioner’s office before the Rangers began firing. If there’s a more humiliating way to congratulate the boss on his official initiation, it doesn’t exist in the Oriole archive.

“Finally, what you’ve worked your whole life for happened,” said Trembley Wednesday afternoon. Before the game.

“I’d say whatever we threw, they hit it. It’s that simple. They say hitting is contagious, and that certainly was the case in the first game. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said Wednesday night. After the evening’s doubleheader. (It was precipitated by a Monday rainout; the Orioles lost the second game by a mere 9-7).

Was there anything the Orioles could have taken from the game, or the night, that was good for even a modest smile?

Well, they have bragging rights on the Rangers. The Rangers accounted for one more run than hit while committing Baltimurder. The Orioles actually kept the Rangers from becoming a 30-30 club.

So there really is no such thing as the perfect piece of crime.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 5:58 am and is filed under Baseball News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.