The Orioles announced today that manager Dave Trembley's contract was getting extended through the 2008 season.

The Orioles then went out and suffered a 30-3 drubbing at the hands of the Texas Rangers. The 30 runs is a modern Major League record.

Stats of note:

The Orioles actually led this game 3-0 after three innings. Then the Rangers kicked a field goal and tacked on a safety in the 4th. They added three field goals in the 6th, a touchdown, PAT and field goal in the 8th, and two more field goals in the 9th.

The Orioles made 252 pitches in their nine innings, 11 short of the nine-inning record (since 1957) of 263 pitches made by Oakland in a 20-4 loss to Detroit on April 13, 1993 (as the home team, the A's pitched eight innings).

The Rangers had four different players with at least four RBIs, including Jarrod Saltalamacchia AND Ramon Vazquez EACH driving in seven.

.... and this is the first game of a double-header.

Update: Other records tied or set:

• Most batters in a 9-inning game, AL, tied - 65, 8/28/92 by Milwaukee vs. Toronto
• Most at bats in a 9-inning game, AL, tied - 57, same as above
• Most players scoring 2 or more runs in a game, AL, tied - 9, last done 6/4/94 by Minnesota vs. Toronto
• Most players with 2 or more hits in an AL game, tied - 9, by many
• Most RBIs in one game, MLB record - 30
• Biggest margin for pitcher earning save - 27 (old record was 19 by Stan Belinda on 9/4/99)

More notes:

• It was the ninth time a major league team scored 30 runs, the first since Chicago set the major league scoring record in a 36-7 rout of Louisville in a National League game on June 28, 1897, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
• Prior to the game, the Rangers Pythag record was 56-68 and Baltimore was 63-60.  After the game, the Rangers went to 59-66 and the Orioles dropped to 60-64.
• ESPN News reported that this was 1st occurence of one team scoring 9 or more in 2 different innings in same game.

The White Sox stopped their eight-game losing streak last night with a 4-3 win over the Royals.

Interestingly, it was their longest losing streak in 16 years.

So, I decided to see which team now has gone the longest without losing at least eight in a row.

What once was epic now is commonplace.
What once we used as milestones to gauge
Success or progress, one race can erase
As we remind ourselves of the new age

In which we live. How quickly we forget
What once we waited for so long to see
The countdown keeping track with us: and yet
Counting up can be unexpectedly

Exciting. Without any goal in sight
We watch, if only to see just how high
A record can climb. Thinking that it's "right"
Is no prerequisite. No matter why

We think that so many new records soar
We've watched and wondered years and times before.

The Yankees 12-0 loss to the Orioles this past Tuesday featured a impromptu and inefficient walkathon.

Oriole pitchers gave out nine free passes, while still managing to keep the Yanks off the board.

As shown below, this is only the 12th time in the last 50 years that a team drew nine or more walks in a nine-inning game and failed to score.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: to identify the game, players and plays shown in this video:

As mention in today's Banter, the Yankees notched their seventh straight home game with at least seven runs last night, torching the Royals 7-1.

The Bombers are merely halfway to the best streak of home games with 7 or more runs within the last 50 years. The BoSox ran off 14 straight less than two years ago.

Here's the complete list:

As noted in this morning's Banter, the Yankees put up 16 runs against the woeful White Sox at the Stadium last night.

This happened to be the third consecutive home game in which the Yanks put at least a "16-spot" on their "guests". The Bombers had concluded their last homestand with 17-5 and 21-4 pastings of the hapless Devil Rays.

There had been only one other occurence of a team scoring at least 16 runs in two consecutive home games during the last 50 years.

Here's the breakdown on the outbursts ...