Jim Johnson

Throwing a game away - literally - doesn't usually sit well with teams, especially when they are attempting to establish themselves as consistent winners. So when the Orioles dropped a 9-8, 10-inning loss to the Oakland A's Sunday afternoon on consecutive poor throws following sacrifice bunt attempts, it would be understandable if the players were chewing nails in post-game interviews. For the most part, that was not the case - not after the Orioles (15-10) took three of four in their personal pain chamber, the Oakland Coliseum, to kick off a brutal, three-city, 11-game West Coast swing.

The Orioles' 17-game extra-inning winning streak ended Wednesday afternoon, but the team's 100-game winning streak when leading at the completion of the seventh inning is still alive and well heading into the Orioles' 11-day, 11-game West Coast road trip, which begins tonight in Oakland. When that streak - which dates back to Aug. 8, 2011 - reached the century mark after Tuesday's 4-3 win over the Blue Jays, closer Jim Johnson noted that the streak coincided with the time when the Orioles began to turn things around.

Each Wednesday, blogger Matt Vensel will highlight five statistics that really mean something for the Orioles. 66 -- saves, most in the major leagues, for Orioles closer Jim Johnson since Sept. 7, 2011. With Tuesday's win over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Orioles have now won 100 straight regular-season games when leading at the completion of the seventh inning, a run that started on August 8, 2011. That is the second-longest such streak since 1961. A lot of things have played a role in that streak -- manager Buck Showalter pointed to the mentality of his players -- but no factor might be bigger than closer Jim Johnson.

When the topic of winning streaks arose before Wednesday afternoon's game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Orioles manager Buck Showalter insisted that his players don't pay much attention to them. “I don't think they had a thing up there where they were X'ing out [and saying] 'There's one more,'” Showalter deadpanned. “Our guys, they don't get too bogged down.” But later Wednesday, a streak that has defined the Orioles' resilience ended as they dropped a 6-5 decision in 11 innings at Camden Yards, snapping their remarkable franchise-record run of 17 straight regular-season extra-inning wins.

Members of the Orioles starting rotation have had their struggles getting deep into games, but right-hander Jason Hammel gave the team a gritty six-inning effort against the Dodgers in Game 1 of Saturday's doubleheader. Through 16 games, no Orioles starter has yet to last more than six innings. Still, the way Hammel battled through early pitch-count problems was key to the series-opening victory. It also served as an example to the rest of the rotation. Hammel struggled through a 32-pitch first inning that saw the Orioles go down early on Andre Ethier's three-run homer.

In a win that was marred by a knee injury to designated hitter Wilson Betemit, the Orioles outslugged the Boston Red Sox, 12-9, on Monday while hitting five of the game's seven home runs. A swirling wind at Ed Smith Stadium turned routine fly balls into hits and hard-hit flyballs into home runs as the clubs combined for 33 hits. Trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the second, Betemit tied the game with a three-run home run against Boston's Graham Godfrey. Betemit later had a sacrifice fly to give him four RBIs on Monday and six total in his past two games.

Steve Johnson, as is his nature, isn't going away quietly in the fight for the fifth spot in the rotation. Johnson, who has earned a reputation as a never-give-up battler, threw four scoreless innings to lead the Orioles to a victory over the Minnesota Twins, 7-1, Sunday at Ed Smith Stadium. Johnson gave up three hits, one walk and hit a batter, but always made the pitch to get out of trouble. He threw 67 pitches, 40 of them for strikes. "I was behind a lot of hitters, but I battled back.

We've been telling you for the last year that the Orioles clubhouse is pretty loose. Here was another example of that, courtesy of newcomer Russ Canzler's big day on Wednesday against a Team Spain club made up of minor leaguers and independent leaguers. Canzler, who is fighting for a reserve job as a first baseman-outfielder, didn't realize that his two-homer, six RBI performance Wednesday wouldn't count toward the spring stats until after he came out of the game and got some razzing from his teammates.

SARASOTA, Fla. - In an otherwise meaningless exhibition against an obviously undermanned Spain World Baseball Classic team, Orioles manager Buck Showalter accomplished something important Wednesday afternoon. He found work for relievers Jim Johnson , Darren O'Day and Luis Ayala - all of whom were key parts of the club's outstanding bullpen in 2012 and all of whom had not pitched in a game this spring. Showalter wants to keep their innings and workload down, but he also has to get them ready for April.

The World Baseball Classic has been the talk of the early days of spring training, partly because it's the reason for the elongated training schedule this year and partly because of the mixed feelings that a lot of teams have about it. It's supposed to be the World Cup of baseball - the answer to the decision by the IOC to remove baseball from the Olympics because Major League Baseball refused to interrupt its regular season once every four years...