Because this is genuinely what I do with myself.

I looked through the Orioles’ photo day images from this season and ended up choosing them as my subject for this week’s Camden Depot cartoon. Specifically, I ended up parodying photos of Jake Arrieta, Brian Matusz (of course – it’s me drawing these), Jair Jurrjens, Adam Russell, Darren O’Day and Chris Davis. I’ve decided to share them here, too, just because I rarely like what I draw because that’s how we artists are and I happen to like these quite a bit.

Clicking on the cartoons will take you to the actual photographs. (The Chris Davis one is indeed a reblog on my Tumblr, which has lately become a repository for photos of Laurel and Hardy. You have been warned if you click that link.)

This game was perfectly winnable until Jake Arrieta messed it up.

That’s really all there is to say about this game.

Just for you, Jake, there’s this:

Artist’s sketch of the offense in this game.

You think this game would have happened yesterday since both starters seemed so determined to create fireworks.

Seriously, at one point Jake Arrieta was stoked to a 7-3 lead and he managed to completely obliterate it for the Orioles in the fourth inning. Although it was not Arrieta who got the loss – that was tagged on poor Luis Ayala, who was in doing mop-up duty – it was still quite evident that Buck Showalter had seen enough, because at one point he just went out to yell at Arrieta on his own.

In the end, the solution was to send Arrieta to AAA Norfolk, where he can be Bad Arrieta every five days out of the team’s way. It’s probably for the best for him and for us – he’ll be somewhere where he can work out his issues, whatever they are, and the Orioles will be able to try out new pitchers in his spot. Tomorrow – or really, later tonight – it’s going to be Miguel Gonzalez starting in the Majors for the first time. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed here.

Oh, but there is some good news and it’s not the Dacia Sandero – Joe Mahoney was called up yesterday, filling Tillman’s spot on the roster (at least for now). Believe me when I say I am SO UNBELIEVABLY EXCITED to see him finally arrive. Tonight will be a good night, I think. EEEEEE PROSPECTS.

But for now…sleep. Yes. For all of us.

I really don’t know how to describe this one. It was one of those seesaw sorts of games and I was unable to watch tonight, so I was therefore unable to write my recap as the game went on.

Here is what happened.

Seriously, it was just one of those nights. There were some positives, certainly: the Orioles scored more than three runs for the first time since June 16th. That’s a huge monkey off the team’s back. They’re also only four games behind the Yankees now (because the Yankees were kind and lost), so that makes me feel a little better, too. Oh, and Jake Arrieta only gave up five runs in less than four innings this time.

Thankfully, we had Matt Wieters to hit a home run and Rule 5 Flaherty to save the day and single in a run in the eighth inning, with Xavier Avery sealing the deal with an insurance homer later in the inning. It’s nice to have a savior or two in your lineup.

This game can’t be a Morris Marina game since the Orioles won it, but both teams didn’t exactly do a good job with damage control tonight (fifteen runs total is quite a bit, after all). Therefore, I will leave you all with this beautiful error from my hometown’s Stop and Shop since the game was about as coherent as this grammar is.

The Orioles are renown for being inept most of the time.

It’s not much offense, but I’ll take it!

It was the bottom of the eighth when we actually got the offense – Matt Wieters homered with Adam Jones on first, and the Orioles turned an 0-1 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

It helped that we got Good Arrieta today, too – he went six innings, and although he struggled through the first three innings, he only gave up one run in the third. I guess we actually got Decent Arrieta, but ‘decent’ is more good than bad.

The bullpen backed Arrieta up with three scoreless (with Strop getting the win), too. I love them so much this year. They’re incredible.

Tomorrow we have an off-day. If someone could go and cast a Hitting Spell on the team during that time, that would be wonderful. Thank you!

This man is part of the reason we lost tonight (even though I also won because I like both teams). (Photo by me on 4/27/11 at Nationals Park.)

Unlike the rest of you, I both won and lost tonight because I happen to be a huge Mets fan, but I’ll try to keep my biases towards both teams out of this article for the sake of sounding like a normal person.

Here’s what happened: pitching happened. This game was extremely fast because for the most part R.A. Dickey and recent food poison victim Jake Arrieta were both dealing. In fact, Arrieta turned in his second quality start in a row, although the word ‘quality’ is sort of questionable because he sort of gave up a grand slam to Ike Davis in the sixth inning. He still pitched seven innings, though, saving the bullpen, and since he gave up the grand slam Buck Showalter was able to give Kevin Gregg some work. (Gregg promptly gave up a triple which led to a run and made the score 5-0 Mets in the eighth inning.)

On the other side, R.A. Dickey threw a one-hitter, his second in a row. A National League pitcher hasn’t pitched back-to-back starts and given up one hit or less since the 1940s. I mean, that’s just incredible. There’s nothing the Orioles could do tonight – at least they got to be part of history in a way, albeit negative.

I’m sad because my standing appointment on Tuesdays is going to prevent me from watching the game tomorrow night, but I shouldn’t be selfish and wish for extra innings even though both teams have well-rested bullpens right now. What I can wish for? The Orioles need to figure out how to score runs without relying on the long ball. It’s a tall order at Citi Field. If they could at least learn to play a little small ball, they might not end up on the wrong end of games like this.

(I’d be fine if they don’t do it against the Mets, though. I like them very much, too.)

One hundred games left in the season. That’s actually really sad to think about because now the season’s going to go by even faster and we’ll be depressed. I guess I should stop counting.

Every so often, I get to use this.

Today Good Arrieta pitched, so I get to post this for the first time in a while. Arrieta wasn’t even supposed to pitch tonight, but Brian Matusz bunted a ball into his own face and was pushed back until Friday (he’s okay, but that’s a classic Players Steph Likes Injury). It turned out for the best for once – Arrieta went seven innings and only gave up one run, rising to the occasion after spending a total of two days in the bullpen. Patton and Strop each pitched a scoreless inning (with Strop making a great play at third base in the ninth).

Offensively, the team totally came together again, putting up seven runs overall (the only innings they didn’t score in were the third, the fifth and the eighth). Wilson Betemit in particular had a heck of a game, with three hits, two runs scored and three RBI (including a massive homer out to right field). J.J. Hardy matched him in number of hits, but he didn’t pad his stats as much as Betemit did tonight.

Basically, tonight was good. Now we can’t have less than a series split, too. I’m enjoying this very much. (Oh, and the Rays lost – thanks, Mets! – so we’ve got second place all to ourselves! Everyone root for Atlanta so we can be tied for first!)

…oh. Right. Bad Arrieta. Damn.

Arrieta gave up all nine of the runs in his four innings of work. Relief came along in the fifth and the Phillies never scored again. Here’s the dreadful box score:

That’s pretty ugly. It’s also pretty clear what the Orioles’ problem was during this game. I mean, if Arrieta hadn’t given up nine runs over his four innings of work – especially the six in the second inning – things might have been better, right? Right?

The problem here is that Arrieta is Matusz from last year. It’s depressing.

On the other hand, I like the way the Orioles find ways to score throughout the game. Their runs are scattered throughout the box score, which, strangely enough, indicates to me that they never saw the game as over despite the fact that they were down 7-0 before they even got to take a turn at bat in the second inning. After Arrieta was out of the game, the Orioles scored a run in the bottom of the fourth inning and then managed to add on two more in the seventh. This game ended a lot closer than it should have, but this team has heart.

I need sleep. Conventions make me tired.

Bad Arrieta showed up today. I’m not a big fan of his.

Good Arrieta pitched the first three innings of this game, with the Rays scoring twice in the fourth. At the end of the top of the fifth inning, the teams were tied 2-2, and it seemed like it was going to be one of those give-and-take games where the teams went back and forth.

Instead of a see-saw, we got Kingda Ka.

Public domain image from Wikipedia.

The Rays piled on a ton of runs in the fifth and sixth innings on both Bad Arrieta and our not-so-invincible-anymore bullpen. To be exact, they scored six of them. Mark Reynolds homered in the top of the eighth to make the score 8-3, but the damage was done. Mark Reynolds’s homer was that little bump at the end of Kingda Ka after you go on the one drop.

That’s pretty much how this one went. Well, Matt Wieters did drive a run in at the very end in the ninth, but there’s no part of Kingda Ka that describes that (unless you hated the ride and getting off is exciting for you).

At least we have tomorrow off.

At least we have this guy. (Wikipedia)

Well, for that first inning or two things looked great – Adam Jones homered in the second and Arrieta seemed, well, like Good Arrieta tonight.

Then the wheels fell off. Arrieta allowed two runs in the third and three in the fourth, then put two runners on in the fifth before being pulled from the game. Both runs came around to score, as well as a third which was charged to reliever Miguel Gonzalez (who is still better than Mike Gonzalez, to be fair).

Oh, and in the fifth, the umpire defied the Word of God and committed the cardinal sin of ejecting Matt Wieters from the game. Yeah. That’s…not good. Weets was just defending his pitcher (Gonzalez), too.

There was some good in all of this, however. Adam Jones went 3-for-3 with two walks at the plate tonight, slamming two homers on the evening. He’s got a 20-game hit streak going. I’d pick him in Beat the Streak, but then he wouldn’t hit. You can do it, though, since you don’t have my luck.

We also got Endy Chavez back and sent Tommy Hunter to AAA Norfolk. Avery went down to Norfolk, too, but Avery’s still a prospect and he was just filling in for Endy and Nolan Reimold on the roster, so it’s not as big a deal as it is to send down an established Major League starter. I still miss Koji, you know.

If we get swept tomorrow, it’ll be only the second time this year. I don’t even want to look up how many times we were swept by the end of May last year, but I’ll bet you it was a lot more than one or two.