Uuuuugh. (Actually, Murphy's upset because his namesake Daniel Murphy now sports an ugly moustache.)

Well, we almost won this one on the Mets’ ineptitude instead of our own for once.

Except we didn’t because we lost. Yeah.

I’m not sure what I have to say about this entire series on the whole, because the Orioles struggled throughout most of it until they finally started putting things together in the very end there. They were completely shut down by the Mets’ pitching staff (a thing I never thought I’d say a year ago) and only managed to scrape across three runs in three games. Two of those runs came on a Wilson Betemit homer – when he hits it, he hits it an awfully long way – and one came on Frank Francisco’s lack of ability to pitch.

Like, he’s Kevin Gregg-bad when he’s not on his game, like he was tonight. He lucked out and got out of it, partially because of the Orioles’ own ineptitude (J.J. Hardy managed to get himself out by hitting a ball and running down the line only to have the ball hit him), but he’s not the best pitcher in the world, so the fact that the Orioles were still unable to capitalize fully on his lack of skill tonight…not really that good.

The funny thing is that I watch both of these teams pretty much every night and I was expecting this series to be a lot closer, but the Orioles simply chose not to perform – either that, or the Mets’ pitching staff really is just that good. The Orioles did have to face Santana and Dickey in this series, with Dickey especially anchoring the staff as of late, but they’ve faced incredible pitchers before and have somehow come out victorious (usually by winning their wars of attrition, i.e. going into extras and jumping all over the opposing team after regulation). There must’ve been something more going on that led this team to struggle, especially since they’ve been successful in this situation before and somehow weren’t here.

Maybe they need tomorrow off to watch my baby brother graduate high school to recharge and prepare for the best team in the NL East, which is, surprisingly, the Nationals, which has pretty much stunned anyone who wasn’t paying attention in the off-season. To be fair, given the heat expected tomorrow, everyone should just take tomorrow off.

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.)