Toronto

With Sunday's 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Orioles completed their third and final disastrous trip north of the border this season, something the resurgent club is hoping to quickly expunge from its collective memory. The Blue Jays, however, aren't going to forget this one easily. Not after their star slugger and potential Most Valuable Player candidate, Jose Bautista, was twice hit in the left arm with pitches -- leading to the ejections of Orioles manager Buck Showalter and reliever Alfredo Simon.

To understand the primary difference between the last-place Orioles and the fourth-place Toronto Blue Jays, you don't need to look at the win-loss record. To fully comprehend why the Blue Jays have owned the Orioles recently — they've won 12 straight at Rogers Centre, including 6-4 on Friday night — consider this simple fact. With leading home run hitter Luke Scott out of the lineup because tough left-hander Brett Cecil was pitching, the Orioles' starting nine Friday had a combined 65 homers.

TORONTO — With one swing, Toronto first baseman Lyle Overbay delivered the seemingly inevitable Saturday, another Blue Jays' home run and another victory over the Orioles. Overbay deposited Mark Hendrickson's second pitch of the 11th inning over the right-field wall to give the Jays a walkoff, 5-4 win that marks their 13th-straight victory at Rogers Centre against the Orioles. It was the Blue Jays' fourth solo homer on the afternoon and, incredibly, their 33rd longball in 17 games versus Baltimore this season.

It is surely not as hard a slap in the face to Baltimore's sense of media identity as the makers of John Waters' "Hairspray" filming the movie version in Toronto. But now comes official word from the producers of MTV's "Skins" that this American version of the Brit teen hit won't be filmed in Baltimore — nor will it even be set here. It will be filmed in Toronto instead — and set in a "general eastern seaboard" city, according to Bryan Elsley, the co-creator and executive producer of both the BBC series and its American spinoff, which debuts early next year.

It's getting harder and harder these days to decipher what statistics are the most embarrassing, what numbers best exhibit how awful the 2010 Orioles have played. There are so many to choose from, but here is one that is going to be very tough to beat. With their 8-2 loss to Toronto on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre, the Orioles are now 20 1/2 games behind the Blue Jays for fourth place in the American League East. Only two other teams in baseball -- the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Arizona Diamondbacks -- entered Tuesday more than 20 games out of first place.

When the 2010 season began eight weeks ago, it was widely believed that the Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays would battle all year for fourth place in the American League East, with the loser falling with a thud to the division basement. But after three days here at Rogers Centre and after six games between the two teams, it is clear they barely belong on the same field, never mind in the same conversation. The Blue Jays finished a sweep of the Orioles on Sunday with a 6-1 victory before an announced 15,878, whipping the visitors in every way and sending them into today's day off with a five-game losing streak and a series of questions, including whether manager Dave Trembley will still have a job come Tuesday.

It's bad enough that the Orioles cannot score any runs for Kevin Millwood, who likely goes to the mound every five days knowing that one or two misplaced pitches will cost him another opportunity for a victory. But when they play the kind of defense that they put forth in the first inning Friday night, when four different miscues were made, leading to three Toronto Blue Jays' runs, it's impossible to not at least feel a little sorry for the 35-year-old pitcher, who is doing even more than what the Orioles acquired him to do, and getting let down by his teammates in almost every start.

Orioles center fielder Adam Jones was detained by Canadian immigration officials for a few hours following the arrival of the team charter early Friday afterhe was mistaken for someone else, he said. "Basically, what happened, was they had the wrong person," said Jones, who broke the news on his Twitter page. "They thought I was somebody else. It all got situated but it took its time to get situated. It's frustrating for me. I shouldn't have put it out how I put it out. Now, we can all just get on with it. … Everything's taken care of on my end."

Gilbert Arenas broke out of a scoring slump by dropping his new pass-first approach. Arenas had 22 points and nine assists, Antawn Jamison had 30 points and 12 rebounds and the visiting Washington Wizards beat the Toronto Raptors, 106-102, on Tuesday night. "We've got confidence in him," Jamison said of Arenas, who was limited to just 15 games the past two years because of knee problems. "We know he's going to find a way to get out of it and make us a better team and start being his old self again, too."