Pitch

MILWAUKEE -- You can't say the season came down to a 3-and-1 hanging curveball. That's too easy.The pitch -- fat, tantalizing, as if it were a division title for the lTC taking -- is simply a symbol of a dream that has apparently slipped away.The actuarial tables tell one story. The Orioles are 5 1/2 back with 15 to play. They're in third place for the first time since April. The Blue Jays (not Blow Jays this time, winners of 15 of their last 20) have a magic number of nine. If the Orioles, who've lost eight of 12, win a pennant now, they win a place in legend.

PITTSBURGH -- It's over. The feud is history. Growing ancient, almost.Toronto Blue Jays and American League manager Cito Gaston said yesterday that Orioles ace Mike Mussina definitely will pitch in tonight's All-Star Game at Three Rivers Stadium."

Certain pitching lines are so bizarre, they're worth clipping from the newspaper and posting on the refrigerator. But this pitching line is so historic, it deserves its own frame.Dempsey: IP 1, H 3, ER 1, SO 0, BB 0.Surely it was a joke.Rick Dempsey, the catcher?Or Jack Dempsey, the fighter?They'd be about the same age if the legendary heavyweight was still alive. The fact that he's not leaves us with this inescapable truth:Rick Dempsey pitched.Pretty well, he might add."I didn't walk anybody," the former Oriole said Wednesday, the day after his major-league pitching debut in Milwaukee's 14-4 loss to Boston.

NEW YORK -- All around him, there seemed to be the kind of unhappiness and upheaval that swirls through the New York VTC Yankees clubhouse even in the best of times. Dave Eiland simply pulled up a chair in front of his locker, though, and thumbed casually through the pages of a magazine, apparently oblivious to the developing controversy.By Yankees standards, it wasn't much. Dave LaPoint and Andy Hawkins, told they were losing their places in the pitching rotation so that Eiland and Steve Adkins could start, reacted angrily.

CINCINNATI -- Dave Stewart blinked. That's how the story begns.Stewart is the centerpiece of the Oakland A's pitching staff, the man they call on as often as possible, the pitcher who owns most of the A's postseason success. Of their past 12 postseason victories, Stewart has won only six.If the Reds didn't knock the snarl off Stewart's face last night, they did deepen it significantly. They knocked him out in four innings on the way to burying the A's in Game 1 of the World Series, ending a remarkable 10-game postseason winning streak.

Toronto - It's one of baseball's irritating mysteries. When one component is going well for a team, inevitably it seems another goes south. Right now, the Orioles' hitting has been up and the pitching has been down. After last night's 9-8 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Orioles have scored five or more runs in nine of their past 11 games, outscoring opponents 72-62 during that span. And yet they are just 4-7 in those games - and 4-5 when they have scored five runs or more. The Orioles hit .281 in June and .285 in the first seven games of this month, a huge improvement over a .239 mark in May. In contrast, the club's ERA rose from 3.86 in May to 4.80 in June and 5.31 in July going into last night.

Northeast's 58-game winning streak in softball is no big deal to ace pitcher Kristy Zulka.Before she takes the mound Wednesday (3:30 p.m.) at Upton Park against Archbishop Spalding's fastballing Kim Sheridan, Zulka said the streak will not be on her mind."

IT WAS BAD, but at least there was some interesting symmetry to it. Orioles starter Matt Riley gave up at least one walk and a three-run homer in each of the two innings he worked last night. Alex Rodriguez, then Derek Jeter, each registered three-run home runs to demoralize the Orioles. Then Riley was gone and the Orioles were off to see if they could match the infamous franchise mark of 15 walks. Somehow, they fell just short with 13. It did not have to be like this. It was a gamble at best, a shortsighted miscalculation at worst.

Are you in on it? Apparently, all Baltimoreans are, but it's the others we're worried about. Ad Inside-the-Beltway humor sells Baltimore to Washingtonians.pg 6b

Less than a year removed from Single-A, Jay Witasick sat in the Oakland Athletics bullpen . . . thinking.For two games, Witasick anticipated the call. It never came.His worries finally ended when he was inserted in the eighth inning Sunday, the last day before the All-Star break. Witasick, a 1990 graduate of C. Milton Wright, became the first player from UMBC to pitch in the major leagues."All I wanted was my first major-league pitch to be a strike," said Witasick from his Oakland hotel room.