Mancini’s big bat can’t change the outcome

Four-RBI performance wasted as O’s lose 102nd

The Orioles opened their final homestand of the season with one of those games that would tear a team’s heart out if it really meant anything.

They entered the eighth inning with a lead and ended the evening with their 102nd loss, falling 8-5 to the Toronto Blue Jays before an announced crowd of 9,280 at Camden Yards.

Jays slugger Justin Smoak led off the ninth inning with a mammoth home run off reliever Mychal Givens to put the Jays ahead in a back-and-forth game that had Trey Mancini’s fingerprints all over it.

Mancini gave the Orioles the early lead in his first at-bat, tied the game in his third at-bat and put the O’s back ahead in his fourth at-bat, but his four-RBI performance was rendered moot by a four-run Toronto ninth that featured a highlight-film moment that was both electrifying and terrifying.

Rookie Cavan Biggio became the third player in Blue Jays history to hit for the cycle when he lined a ball off the fence in center field, but Mason Williams crashed into the fence so hard trying to catch the ball that he lay on the warning track for several minutes before leaving the field under his own power.

It was Biggio’s first career four-hit game and the first Jays cycle since Jeff Frye turned the trick in 2001.

Mancini didn’t waste any time resuming his late-season power surge. He came up in the first inning with Dwight Smith Jr. on first base and launched a long home run to center field to stake first-time Orioles starter Chandler Shepherd to a quick lead.

It was Mancini’s fourth home run in his last five games, and he was far from through. He also delivered a game-tying sacrifice fly in the fifth that scored Chance Sisco on a close play at the plate and a go-ahead single in the seventh that scored Steve Wilkerson, who came on as a pinch runner after Cisco led off the inning with a double.

The home run was Mancini’s 34th of the season and the four RBIs gave him a total over 11 over the past five games. He has hit safely in 17 of his last 19 games.

Shortstop Jonathan Villar also homered for the Orioles, his 22nd of the year in the ninth inning.

Shepherd, who was claimed off waivers from the Chicago Cubs in late May, was making his third big-league appearance. He pitched a solid four innings at Yankee Stadium in his debut Aug. 13, returned to Triple-A Norfolk for three appearances and then rejoined the Orioles for the September roster expansion.

He pitched one other time in relief, allowing two runs in three innings against the Rangers at Oriole Park on Sept. 7.

In his first big-league start, he pitched four innings and allowed three runs on four hits, two of which left the yard. Randal Grichuk sliced the early Orioles’ lead in half with a solo shot to right field in the second inning and Biggio’s two-run blast in the third gave the Blue Jays the lead.