It took me more than an hour to get home from Camden Yards. Russell Street to 295 was reduced to one lane again. I got on 695 and the two left lanes were closed. I've tried 95 from the ballpark and it's always down to one lane. I'm running out of routes. The Orioles should be so lucky. They've been outscored 27-6 in their last three games. And as I noted earlier, they've scored three runs or fewer in 11 of their last 12 games and have totaled 23 runs since June 15. The Orioles are 6-for-63 with runners in scoring position in their last 11 games. But hey, let's not dump all of the blame on the offense. The Orioles have allowed 25 earned runs and 42 hits in their last three games, amassing an 8.33 ERA. They had surrendered seven earned runs and 28 hits in their previous four games for a 1.80 ERA. It's not hard to understand how they've lost seven of their last nine games.

"Any stretch is tough when you're losing," said Mark Reynolds. "They're not really close games right now, which is kind of tough. But we're in an all right spot. You keep playing every day and just keep at it. That's all you can do and you can't get too down on yourself. You've just got to keep going at it, and hopefully we'll snap out of it and get the good snowball rolling." Reynolds' bat is in a deep freeze. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts last night and stranded four runners. His average has fallen from .245 on June 14 to .213. Fans are booing each failure, which also included a roller to the mound last night. "I had a bunch of chances tonight and just couldn't get it done," Reynolds said. "You get in these funks and just like when things are going good, everybody seems to pick up on the energy of it, and when things are going bad, it snowballs the other way. "Everyone in here is frustrated, but we'll snap out of it." If it doesn't happen soon, the starters will sue for non-support. "I know last year at points there was a lot of pressure to score," Reynolds said. "Right now, we're not doing anything at all, really. When you're hitting the home run, you have to get hits with runners in scoring position, and we haven't been doing that. I'm sure they feel some pressure to put up zeroes. But we've got to do our best to give them a lead early in the game and let them settle in and throw strikes, so that they're not worried that if they make mistakes, the game's over. We're not doing that right now and I'm sure they're feeling pressure. "We came in the locker room and everybody's like, 'Keep your head up.' It's part of the game. Every team goes through it and it just happens to be our time. We've got three games left with these guys. We're going to keep playing and bust our tails and work hard to try to get better. I think once we start getting a few hits with guys on and driving in some runs, hopefully it'll rub off on the rest of the team and we'll get things going again." Things are going so poorly for the Orioles right now, their hottest hitter, Wilson Betemit, is getting more attention for his errors than his stretch of 19 hits in 37 at-bats. Betemit committed his 12th error, and his fourth in the last six games. He began last night tied for the most errors in the American League despite having the fewest amount of chances in the group. And so it goes for a team that's not hitting, not pitching and not fielding. It's also not getting discouraged. Not yet, at least.