Borucki, Blue Jays beat up on woeful Orioles
TORONTO 5 BALTIMORE 0
BALTIMORE — A historic defeat for the Baltimore Orioles wasn’t much different than the 106 that preceded it.
Baltimore managed only three hits in falling to Toronto 5-0 on Monday night and tied an Orioles record for losses in a season.
“It’s frustrating, to say the least,” first baseman Chris Davis said. “Once we hit 100, it was kind of like, I don’t know, I honestly didn’t have any words for it. It was embarrassing.”
Rookie Ryan Borucki pitched eight sharp innings for the Blue Jays, who have won 13 of 17 games between the two bottom teams in the AL East.
Toronto stands 25 games better than the Orioles, whose 43-107 record is worst in the majors. Since the franchise came to Baltimore in 1954, the only other Orioles team with 107 defeats was the 1988 club, which started 0-21 on its way to a 54-107 finish.
The franchise record for losses is 111, by the 1939 St. Louis Browns — a mark well within reach of this team.
“It’s one of those things you never want to be associated with,” Davis said.
Baltimore has been blanked 15 times and owns a major leagueworst 26-49 record at home. Only 8,198 fans showed up at soggy Camden Yards to watch yet another defeat.
The major league record is 120 losses, set by the expansion New York Mets in 1962. With a victory over the White Sox on Sunday, the Orioles can’t lose more than 119.
Not that it’s any consolation in a lost season.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little down right now because of the loss and the way things are going,” said Davis, who’s batting .172 as the highest-paid player on the team.
Borucki (4-4) gave up three singles and struck out seven in his 15th career start. The left-hander allowed two runners to reach third base.
“Defence made a lot of nice plays for me and I was getting a lot of ground balls,” Borucki said.
With runners on first and second and no outs in the Baltimore third, Austin Wynns hit a low liner to shortstop Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who gloved the ball and then let it drop to the ground. The ploy caught the Orioles flat-footed, and Toronto turned a 6-4-3 double play before Baltimore’s Renato Nunez barely beat the relay to third base.
“A lower throw we get three,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said. “With first and second and no out, that’s big. They get a knock there you have a different score.”
The Blue Jays got all the offence they needed in the third inning against Evan Phillips, who was obtained from Atlanta in the July 31 trade that sent Kevin Gausman and Darren O’Day to the Braves.
Making his first major league start, Phillips (0-1) retired the first five batters he faced before Kevin Pillar doubled, Rowdy Tellez hit an RBI single and Danny Jansen homered to left.
Pillar homered in the seventh, and Aledmys Diaz went deep in the ninth.
Mariners 4, Astros 1
HOUSTON — Rookie pinch-hitter Daniel Vogelbach’s first career grand slam with two outs in the eighth inning lifted the Seattle Mariners over the Houston Astros 4-1 on Monday night.
The loss cut Houston’s lead in the AL West to four games over Oakland, which was off Monday.
Mariners starter Wade LeBlanc allowed three hits and one run in 5 1⁄3 innings. Ryan Cook (2-1) struck out one in a perfect seventh for the win, and Edwin Diaz pitched a scoreless ninth for his MLB-leading 56th save.