I've lost count of how many times a hitter this season has said that you have to "tip your cap" to the opposing pitcher who just shut the Orioles down. So it was mildly refreshing tonight not to hear the Orioles lavish praise on Blue Jays soft-tossing lefty Brad Mills, who gave up just two hits in seven innings of Toronto's sweep-securing 5-0 victory.
Instead, the Orioles admitted that they had plenty of pitches to hit and they just missed them.
"We just beat ourselves," Luke Scott said. ""If he was painting [the corners], I'd understand. We just didn't make the adjustment. We had pitches to hit. I can understand if we are getting carved up as far as not [getting] much out over the plate. We had some pitches to hit, we just missed them."
Corey Patterson agreed with Scott's opinion that the Orioles had only themselves to blame. In fact, Patterson looked up at Mills' radar readings on the stadium scoreboard and concluded that the Orioles were going to have a big day offensively.
"We should have done a little bit better job of getting guys on and scoring runs," said Patterson. "The radar gun probably went from 84 to 87 [miles an hour]. He didn't really have anything that could blow it by you, or a big change of speed. Offensively, we just didn't get the job done tonight. He pitched well, but I think it was more a matter of us not executing."
We all know by now that the Blue Jays are 12-0 against the Orioles this season, but this you may not know. In the 12 games, the Orioles have scored 23 total runs, been shutout three times and held to two runners or fewer 10 times.
"It's something that again, we've been through all season long," said interim manager Juan Samuel. "These guys have to make the adjustments. They have to do it. They know what [Mills'] bread-and-butter was and we just didn't get it done."