O's Can't Find Way at Home

Sixth Loss in Row At Camden Yards Dumbfounds Team: Blue Jays 8, Orioles 5

After launching a two-run homer in the third inning of an 8-5 victory, Toronto's Vernon Wells, right, comes home to a high-five from Reed Johnson. The Orioles are 57-65. (Joe Giza -- Reuters)

BALTIMORE, Aug. 22 -- Late summer at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The weather takes a beautiful, cool turn toward fall. The Baltimore Orioles begin their inevitable crash. And the occupant of the manager's office in the home clubhouse removes his cap, runs his fingers through his hair and sighs deeply. Happens every year.

An 8-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon -- in which the Orioles trailed by six runs early, then brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth inning only to fall tantalizingly short -- completed a wretched homestand and brought the Orioles (57-65) to the precipice of a cliff they have gone over before.

"I never saw it coming," veteran first baseman Rafael Palmeiro said of the 0-6 homestand that came on the heels of the team's best stretch of the season. "We were on a high. It's incredible how baseball is."

If Palmeiro was truly caught off guard, it is because he has not been around the last couple of summers, each of which has featured a stunning collapse that occurred at the exact instant the team reached its season pinnacle.

In 2002, the Orioles pulled to 63-63 on Aug. 23 -- their first time at .500 in more than three months -- only to go 4-32 the rest of the way. Last season, they topped out at 57-59 on Aug. 10, then lost their next eight and finished with a 71-91 record.

Those collapses were cited as primary reasons the Orioles fired manager Mike Hargrove at the end of last season, believing a manager with more "fire" would prevent such a thing from happening again.

Which brings us to the current occupant of the manager's office, Lee Mazzilli.

A week ago Sunday, the Orioles were wrapping up a 4-2 road trip with the type of win that often serves as a landmark for a team turning its season around -- an 11-7 victory at Toronto in which the Orioles trailed by six runs. It was the team's 11th win in 13 games , and it drew them within two games of .500, at 57-59. Players began talking openly about their wild-card hopes.

But by late Sunday afternoon, following the team's sixth straight loss and having just seen another talented young pitcher -- left-hander Erik Bedard -- fall apart before the game was halfway over, Mazzilli appeared as frustrated as he has all season.

Bedard was "behind hitters. Again. When you get ahead of a hitter 0-2, then get to 3-2 and [give up] a home run, that's no good," Mazzilli said, describing the sequence that produced Eric Hinske's three-run homer in the second inning. "You can't do it in this league. You have to put guys away early. . . . We can't keep using five pitchers every game."

The late-season digressions of Bedard (5-8) and right-hander Daniel Cabrera -- the team's two most promising young pitchers -- represent perhaps the most disturbing trend for the Orioles at present. Both have pitched more innings than in any other season in their careers and may be showing the effects.

"I have no idea," said a perplexed Bedard, when asked what might be behind his acute slump, which has produced a 1-4 record and a 6.90 ERA in his last six starts.

Bedard, Cabrera and Dave Borkowski -- the Orioles' three starters in this series -- lasted a combined 9 2/3 innings while giving up 20 runs, which computes to an 18.62 ERA.

This homestand began with three straight losses to the American League West-leading Oakland Athletics. The Blue Jays, though, were in last place in the East. These six straight losses -- in which they were outscored by an aggregate score of 51-17 -- have loosened the Orioles' grip on third place, as they lead fourth-place Tampa Bay by two games and last-place Toronto by six.