Mark Hendrickson with his 5th win.

That was exciting. Melvin Mora hit a game winning, walk off homerun in the bottom of the 12th to beat the Toronto Blue Jays. It was his first homerun in 51 games, the longest stretch of his career, and just his 3rd of the season. But it couldn’t come at a better time. Maybe Mora can repeat what he did last year and catch fire from now until the end of the season. Luke Scott also hit a homerun, his 18th, to give the Orioles a 2-0 lead in the 4th. We got our first run on a Matt Wieters double and our third run came on an Aubrey Huff double. Nick Markakis had a pair of doubles in the game and Ty Wiggington had a double and a single.

Rich Hill got the start because Jeremy Guthrie is sick with the flu, so Brad Bergesen was pushed back to Sunday and Hill got the nod last night. He took advantage of the opportunity and had a quality start. 2 runs on 7 hits and a walk in 6 innings. He had 4 strikeouts and he left the game with the lead so he was in line for the win. Danys Baez did his part coming in for Hill in the 7th with a runner on first and getting out of it without surrendering a run. Jim Johnson couldn’t do the same in the 8th. Hes been struggling lately and that continued as he allowed the tieing run to score. George Sherrill pitched a perfect 9th to take us into extra innings. Brian Bass pitched 2 scoreless innings and Hendrickson pitched a scoreless 12th to set up our win in dramatic fashion.

Player of the game: Melvin Mora (1-3, 2 BB, GW solo HR (3) (.263 AVG))

Dave Trembley returns from his 2 game suspension for the last game before the all-star break. The O’s will be facing… yet another left handed pitcher. This time its Mark Rzepczynski (pronounce that for me?) (0-0, 1.50) fresh off his major league debut. The Orioles send a rookie of their own out there in Brad Bergesen (5-3, 3.59).

Jason Berken gets the hard luck loss, his 6th.

We really can’t hit left handed pitching. And we’re seeing alot of it. The offense could only manage 5 hits and they were all singles. Luke Scott had 2 of them. Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Melvin Mora had the others. Mora also had a walk, as did Matt Wieters and Cesar Izturis. There has to be something Terry Crowley can do to prepare our hitters better for lefties. Its not even just this year, we’ve struggled against them historically in the past 10 years or so too.

The way Berken pitched, he deserved a better outcome than another loss on his resume. Thats 6 straight losing decisions since he won his major league debut. He went 5.2 innings giving up 5 hits, both runs, 2 walks, and had 1 strikeout. Matt Albers continued his recent success by pitching 2.1 innings of scoreless ball. He looks like the Albers of last year. Must be feeling recovered from the labrum problems. Kam Mickolio pitched a scoreless 9th.

Player of the game: Matt Albers (2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, K (3.58 ERA))

We face yet another lefty tonight in rookie Ricky Romero (7-3, 2.96). We’ve got our own lefty on the hill, Rich Hill (3-2, 7.43).

Brian Bass earned his 5th win of the season. George Sherrill locked up his 19th save.

The Orioles went from losing the series to winning the series in 1 inning. The O’s were trailing 3-0 heading into the 9th inning. Melvin Mora led off the inning with a double, his 2nd of the game and 9th of the season, Gregg Zaun walked, and Oscar Salazar singled to left to load the bases. Adam Jones reached on an infield single to score the first run. Nick Markakis reached on an error to cut the lead to one. Then Ty Wiggington singled to give the Orioles their first lead at 4-3. Brian Roberts pinch hit for Nolan Riemold and he reached on another Seattle error to score the 5th run. Luke Scott singled before Mora ended the inning on a fielder’s choice. It turned a potentially devastating road trip into a 6 game split on the west coast.

David Hernandez started for the O’s and got into a little trouble right out of the gate. He got the first batter to pop out, and should have gotten the 2nd batter to do the same but Robert Andino misread the fly ball and it dropped in front the left fielder Riemold. A couple batters later Jose Lopez hit a 2 run homer to give the Mariners an early lead. But Hernandez would settle down after that, pitching 5 consecutive scoreless innings before leaving the game. He would give up 5 hits and 2 walks, while striking out 3. Brian Bass pitched the 7th and 8th giving up an unearned run on a throwing error by Salazar, who has absolutely no business playing shortstop. Salazar is a butcher at first base, let alone the hardest position to play on the field. After the Orioles took the lead, Sherrill would come in and get the save. He gave up a hit, but it didn’t affect the outcome. Good way to end a road trip and go into an off day.

Player of the game: Ty Wiggington (1-3, 2 RBI, 2 BB (.257 AVG))

The Orioles go home to play a three game series against the Blue Jays before the all-star break. First up is Jason Berken (1-5, 6.25) against Brett Cecil (2-1, 6.23).

Mark Hendrickson evened up his record at 4-4 with the win.

Something might be wrong with Jeremy Guthrie. He couldn’t touch 90 mph last night with his fastball, even though he usually sits at 93-95 on a regular basis. He only made it though 2.1 innings last night before being pulled with 2 men on base. He gave up 3 runs on a homerun to Franklin Guitierrez in the first inning. He walked 4 and  didn’t strike out a batter. I have a feeling Guthrie’s hurt. That would certainly not be a good thing. Hopefully its just a little arm fatigue that will go away after the all-star break. Hendrickson did a hell of a job in relief. He got out of the 3rd without allowing a run to score, then pitched 2 more scoreless innings. He had 4 strikeouts in that span. Then Matt Albers, Danys Baez, and Jim Johnson each pitched a scoreless inning each in the 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively. George Sherrill gave up a run in the 9th, but that only made it an 8 run lead. The bullpen did a great job helping the team after Guthrie’s short start.

The bats came alive again. We scored 2 runs in the 1st inning on a 2 run single by Luke Scott. It might’ve been a 3 run play, but the umpire ruled that Nolan Riemold only go to third on an overthrow that went into the dugout. Dave Trembley disagreed, so he got tossed. It was hard to tell if it was the right call, but Trembley didn’t like the ump saying Riemold wasn’t hustling on the play. We got 4 more in the 6th when Riemold hit an RBI single. That was followed up by a 2 RBI triple from Scott, then an RBI single by Melvin Mora. Scott wasn’t done producing runs yet. In the 7th he hit a 3 run homerun to give him 7 RBI in the game. A Ty Wiggington RBI double and a Riemold 2 RBI single completed the scoring. The offense did a great job of making Mariner’s starter Erik Bedard throw alot of pitches. He was on an 85 pitch limit, so he could only go 4 innings last night, despite striking out 8 Oriole batters in that time. The Seattle bullpen did a terrible job, giving up 10 of the 12 runs.

Player of the night: Hmm…. Luke Scott (3-4, 2 R, 7 RBI, triple (1), HR (17) (.305 AVG))

Day game after a night game today with David Hernandez (2-2, 4.15) taking the hill. We’ll be agaisnt yet another lefty, this time its Jason Vargas (3-3, 4.14).