The first text, 9:20pm yesterday, sent by college roommate Mario: “Nice pitching today Baltimore”.
The second text, 10:01 pm, sent by good friend The Cooler: “Just ran across the bball scores…Orioles gave up 30 runs tonight”
The third text, 10:12 pm, sent by college friend Jordan: “So r u a nationals fan tonight?”
The fourth and final text, sent 2:03am this morning, by Mario again: “24 earned runs for the orioles bullpen?”
Yesterday was not a good day to be an O’s fan. I won’t go in to the details, by this point you already know them all (30-3 loss, 30 unanswered runs, 9-7 loss in the second game of the doubleheader, last time a team scored 30 in a game was 100 years ago, etc. etc. etc.). Usually its nice when your favorite team is the talk of the town, this being one of those exceptions. Its always enjoyable when one of your defeats inspires a column entitled “The Greatest Beatdowns in History” (we came in 8th, for the record).
I am glad that I didn’t watch the whole thing. I turned off the TV when it was 14-3, safe in the knowledge that we’d been blown out by the lowly Rangers. Little did I know what was to come. As John Gruber wrote, regarding the Rangers “They might as well have just gone ahead and pantsed them while they were at it.”
The Big Lead says “This is the wackiest score we’ve seen in the sport in our entire left, and that’s not hyperbole.” That sounds about right. 30 runs in a game is almost unimaginable. I echo Roch’s thoughts:
30-3.
No matter how many times I write it or say it, the absurdity nearly overwhelms me.
30-3.
You have to laugh right? To keep from crying, yeah, but I mean come on. Are the O’s the worst team in baseball? No, not even close. This is just one of those flukes that happen. Sadly they happened to my O’s. SC’s right though, who cares?:
Look, in one way, I find it as embarrassing as anyone else does. No one should give up 30 runs in nine innings. Ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. But, it happened. And, of course, it happened to us.
Dave Trembley is still my boy, I didn’t get crazy overnight or anything. My advice to anyone whose mentality toward the team changes thanks to the Texas Rangers (who stink and can’t hit) dropping 30 runs on the O’s is simple: Laugh it off. To hell with it! Who cares?
I’m not even saying it doesn’t suck. But, really, think about it. This was an historical disaster in pitching. This was the first time in 110 years that someone has scored 30 runs in a game. I tried for years to score 30 on RBI Baseball 4 for the Genesis, and the best I ever did was 26.
The odds are overwhelming that you or I will never see another 30-spot in a Major League Baseball game. It’s too bad it was a game with us that went the way it did. It’s still just one loss. And at least it was unique.
Stephen Dubner at the Freakonomics blog helpfully points out that the Rangers scored all 30 of their runs in just four innings, for what thats worth. I just can’t believe the Rangers’ 8th and 9th hitters BOTH went 4-6 with 7 RBIs. Sigh.
Chris Mottram has a pretty funny screen grab from the O’s website during the game. Never let hope die! His brother Jaime reminds us that at least we had Cal. At least we got that going for us, which is nice.
My friend Jason talks about how mlb.com does a good job putting video highlights up on the web. If it were up to me all video/audio/print from this game would be erased forever. I know I will never speak of this game again. Never. This is it. I am now at peace.
(cross-posted at The Sports Note)
