Those 30-Run Rallies Will Kill You Every Time

Little did you know that when you watched Maracaibo, Venezuela beat the Netherlands, 21-2 in the Little League World Series on Tuesday, that it wouldn't be the most embarrassing wipeout of week. Meet your 2007 Baltimore Orioles, who lost 30-3 to the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. For Texas, it was the first time in modern baseball history that a team has scored 30 runs; a total not achieved in the majors since 1897, when the Chicago Colts pounded the Louisville Colonels 36-7.

It did fall short, of course, of the all-time professional record, when the Teatotallers beat the Gashouse Gorillas 55-54 in Baseball Bugs in 1946.

My favorite part, I think, is that the Orioles actually had a 3-0 lead at one point. Also, it was only the first game of a doubleheader ... the Rangers winning the nightcap 9-7. Brad Wilkerson, the only Ranger who played and did not have a hit in the two games, drove home the go-ahead run in Game 2 with a sacrifice fly in the eighth. The 39 runs established an AL record for most runs in a single day, in which the Rangers had 40 hits and 13 walks in 92 official at-bats. Ian Kinsler had 13 at-bats, and Texas rookie David Murphy had six hits. Another Rangers rookie, Travis Metcalf, had eight RBI. So can one game serve as a definitive indictment of the way an franchise is run, and be the cause for a wholesale overhaul? How can Peter Angelos, in the indecent scoreboard glare of a result 110 years in the making, not be totally panicking right now? Should the Orioles simply pack up and leave, and Camden Yards be plowed under and the earth salted as Rome did with Carthage? I'm thinking this is something that you just don't simply shake off, but I could be wrong.

• It's Hard To Pass Two Teams. Meanwhile, Albert Pujols did his own special thing with the number 30, homering for a career-best fifth consecutive game to become the first player in major league history to hit 30 homers in his first seven seasons. St. Louis beat the Marlins 6-4, keeping pace with first-place Chicago, three games back. The Cardinals are two games behind Milwaukee.

• We Never Thought He'd Sink To This. Derek Lowe went seven innings and Matt Kemp had a career-high four hits to lead the Dodgers over the injury-riddled-remains-of-what-formerly-were-the-Phillies, 15-3.

• Break Up The D-Rays. Hey, what gives? The Devil Rays beat the Red Sox for only the second time this season, B.J. Upton hitting a two-run homer off of Daisuke Matsuzaka as Tampa prevailed 2-1. New York, 8-2 winners over the Angels. are five games back in the East.