Remembering bitter, 30-3 day 10 years later

Historic game against Texas humbled O’s

Ten years ago Tuesday was one of the odder days in Orioles history. That night, the club made dubious history by being on the wrong end of a 30-3 drubbing at the hands of the Texas Rangers, allowing the most runs in baseball’s modern era.

The Orioles surrendered 29 hits and all the Rangers’ scoring came in just four innings — five runs in the fourth, nine in the sixth, 10 in the eighth and six in the ninth. The Orioles used only four pitchers, and no position players, on the mound that game, with Daniel Cabrera, Brian Burres, Rob Bell and Paul Shuey each allowing at least six runs.

At the time, I was covering the Orioles for the Carroll County Times, and had stopped paying attention around the time the Rangers scored their 14th run.

You see, earlier in the day, the Orioles had removed the interim tag from manager Dave Trembley’s title and a ho-hum shellacking made the decision easy to focus on that as the story of the day. By the time the Rangers began their conga line around the base paths in the eighth, colleague Pat Stoetzer had delivered me a friendly elbow, informing me I might want to look up from my laptop and take in those final two innings.

So I did, and just like the smattering of Orioles fans in the stands, was pulling for the right to witness something so comically remarkable.

A 30-3 loss would make any day on a baseball beat a memorable one, but what made that one so strange was everything else that transpired.

Some forget that as mentioned above, Trembley became the full-time manager that afternoon. And one could argue that his tenure both officially began and ended that same day.

Adding to the embarrassment of the 30-3 game was that it was only the front end of a doubleheader. The Orioles couldn’t go home and sleep it off. They had to take the field less than an hour later to meet the same team that had just humiliated them so badly — and proceeded to lose again, 9-7. A combined score of 39-10. More history.

Also during the 30-3 defeat, the Orioles introduced Matt Wieters to the crowd at Camden Yards a week after agreeing to a record bonus with their 2007 first-round draft pick. It had been quite a big deal that the two sides beat the midnight deadline to come to terms on a contract. Wieters would go on to become a future All-Star catcher, and generated plenty of excitement during his rise to the majors.

But no one would blame Orioles fans for forgetting his Camden Yards debut that day with a far more striking — albeit bitter — memory marking Aug. 22, 2007.