They didn't tip their caps or give the opposing pitcher his due, quotes Orioles hitters have leaned on all season after a particularly inept offensive performance.
Instead, designated hitter Luke Scott best summed up the feeling in the Orioles clubhouse after they were dominated by soft-tossing left-hander Brad Mills in a 5-0 loss Wednesday night to the Toronto Blue Jays in front of an announced 17,041 at Rogers Centre.
"We just beat ourselves," Scott said.
Mills, making just his third big league start and his first this season, allowed just two hits over seven scoreless innings as Toronto completed the three-game sweep and improved to 12-0 this season against the woeful Orioles (31-70). That's one victory shy of tying their most consecutive wins over one team in franchise history.
In those 12 games, the Orioles have scored just 23 runs and have been shut out three times and held to two runs or fewer 10 times. On several of those occasions, they were overwhelmed by a quality pitcher, such as Shaun Marcum or Ricky Romero, who was at the top of his game.
On Wednesday night, they were shut down by a starter who was consistently challenging hitters with a mid-80s fastball and thriving with his off-speed pitches.
"It's something that, again, we've been through all season long," interim manager Juan Samuel said. "These guys have to make the adjustments. They have to do it. They know that what his bread and butter was, and we just didn't get it done."
Orioles left fielder Corey Patterson acknowledged that he looked up the stadium radar gun during the first inning and concluded, "We're going to put together some runs here."
Instead, the Orioles managed just a leadoff single by Brian Roberts to start the game and a two-out single by Jake Fox in the seventh inning. They finished with just three hits; Ty Wigginton doubled off Kevin Gregg in the ninth.
"We should have done a little bit better job of getting guys on and scoring runs," Patterson said. "The radar gun probably went from 84 to 87 [mph]. 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."
The shame of the offense's latest struggles was that it nullified another strong outing by Jeremy Guthrie, who pitched seven innings in continuing to give the Orioles both innings and quality starts. Guthrie allowed just one unearned run on six hits and an intentional walk, yet he was saddled with the defeat and is tied with teammate Brian Matusz with an American League-leading 11 losses.
Over his past three starts, Guthrie has allowed just three earned runs, 19 hits and two walks over 20 1/3 innings.
"I just am trying to be aggressive and get early outs," Guthrie said. "More importantly, I guess I'm just tired of giving up runs, so I'm going to try to do my best to go out there and limit it. I just don't want to give up any more runs. I sure as heck will give up more runs, but my mind says I don't want to."
The one he gave up Wednesday night came courtesy of an error by Patterson. With Vernon Wells on first in the second inning, Adam Lind lined a single to left field. Patterson acknowledged that he took his eye off the ball, and it hit off his glove. Wells scored easily for the game's first run.
The score stayed 1-0 until the bottom of the eighth, when the Blue Jays scored four runs, three on Lyle Overbay's opposite-field homer off left-hander Will Ohman.
"They've had our number all year," Ohman said. "I've given up three home runs to this team and [none] to anybody else. I've done a good job of getting them real comfortable."
Mills, 25, was 7-4 with a 4.13 ERA in 16 starts for Triple-A Las Vegas when he was summoned to make a spot start. The Blue Jays needed a starter after their rotation was thrown off kilter because of a doubleheader Sunday in Detroit. Mills made two big league starts last season, both against the Philadelphia Phillies, who tallied 12 earned runs, 14 hits and four homers off the lefty in 7 2/3 innings.
None of the Orioles had faced Mills, but that didn't stop four of their first eight batters from hacking at the first pitch. Three of them made outs, including Miguel Tejada, who hit into a double play. Through three innings, Mills had thrown only 23 pitches, and it didn't get much better from there for the Orioles.
"If he was painting [the corners], I'd understand," Scott said. "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."