No folks, that's not a typo. The Orioles lost to the Rangers in the first game of a doubleheader by a final of 30-3. Thirty to three. That's 30. Thirty runs did the Rangers score, and the number was indeed 30. Not 20, mind you, because that would be brutal but not brutal enough. No sir; it was 30. Something that hasn't been done in more than 100 years in major league baseball. The Orioles allowed 30 runs. In one game. (head explodes)

I decided to do something different today. For the first time ever, I posted live updates from the game, sitting in the press box at the Orioles/Rangers doubleheader. What a night to choose for that particular experiment. Without further ado, here are my blow-by-blow notes, as they happened. Needless to say, this game provided a test on my emotions.

1st inning: Daniel Cabrera--who saw his scheduled Monday start pushed back two days, thanks to a rainout and the awesomeness of Erik Bedard-- starts game 1 of the twin bill for the Birds. He comes out throwing strikes, tossing an easy first inning.

The O's get a run in the bottom half on a weird play. After a Brian Roberts leadoff double, Corey Patterson bloops a single into right field. Roberts holds up at third, but right fielder Nelson Cruz throws toward the plate anyway-- and the ball deflects right off the back of Patterson, who had taken a turn around first base. Roberts scampers home as the ball trickles into foul territory. The Orioles, though, fail to plate Patterson, who gets himself hung up between third and home on a Miguel Tejada comebacker.

It's 5:30, and people are still making their way home from work, so we don't have much of a crowd yet. This would be a pretty good attendance for a Little League game, however.

2nd inning: Cabrera and Rangers starter Kason Gabbard trade perfect innings. The Birds' half includes three deep flyouts. Also, I don't understand why his name is "Kason." That's not a name! Would it have been that hard to go with "Jason"? Sheesh.

t-3rd inning: The Rangers get a gift baserunner when a routine popup falls between a tentative Roberts and Nick Markakis in shallow right, putting runners at the corners, but Cabrera gets the last out on a grounder to second.

b-3rd inning: The Rangers may have cost themselves two runs with sloppy fielding. With Roberts at first and one out, Patterson hit a sharp grounder to second-- and if it's physically possible to turn a double play on Corey, this might've been the time it happened. But Ian Kinsler bobbled the ball and could only get the out at first. Markakis followed with a ground-rule double to plate Roberts from second, and Tejada's RBI single to right scored Nick (it looked like Cruz would throw him out by a mile at home, but Markakis made a nice fadeaway slide to elude the catcher's tag).

Meanwhile, one of the pressbox attendants has counted a grand total of 81 people in the bleachers, but some of those may be ushers or jackets draped on empty seats. Not a big crowd yet, folks.

t-4th inning: WOW, did that inning not go well for the Orioles. After a leadoff walk, Jason Botts hit a hot shot to short that Tejada bobbled. He still would've had time to get the force at second, but he wasn't aware of that fact and instead tried to sling the ball all the way to first. Not in time. Two batters later, David Murphy tapped a dribbler about 10 feet down the first-base line. Cabrera rushed in and threw to first, but Murphy was called safe (replays showed that Bob Davidson's call was incorrect).

With the bases loaded, Jarrod Saltalamacchia ripped a two-run single up the middle. Pitching coach Leo Mazzone tried to calm down Cabrera, but instead, the righty coughed up a three-run homer over the right-field scoreboard by #9 hitter Ramon Vazquez (his sixth). With that, the Rangers completed a five-run inning, taking a two-run lead over the Birds thanks to a bad defensive play, a blown call, and a blast.

5th inning: Nothing much is happening now. Cabrera rebounds with a scoreless fifth, but the O's aren't doing much against Gabbard.

6th inning: Well, I wanted something to happen-- but not this. This game has gotten spectacularly, ridiculously, obscenely out of hand. It all began-- about half an hour ago-- with a Saltalamacchia leadoff homer that reminded folks of the guy he was traded for, Mark Teixeira. It was Salty's third as a Ranger and seventh of the season overall. That knocked Cabrera out of the game after just five innings plus a batter. Daniel allowed six runs and nine hits. He got some bad breaks, but all in all it was another disappointing outing for the guy who can't find any semblance of consistency.

You thought that was bad? Well, wait til you see the abysmal performance that Brian Burres unleashed tonight. I like the guy, but yikes-- this was one of the worst relief appearances I've ever seen. He allowed a single and a walk before getting a forceout on a bunt. Then another single. And then-- BLAM. Marlon Byrd blasted his third career grand slam, a no-doubt-about-it shot into the (still mostly empty) left field seats. With that one mighty blast, the Rangers upped their lead to 10-3.

Oh, but there's more. A lot more. The Rangers started another two-out rally with back-to-back singles. Saltalamacchia-- batting for the second time in the inning-- followed with an RBI hit to left. Vazquez followed suit. And so did Frank Catalanotto. That made it 13-3.

Burres didn't even make it out of the inning. Dave Trembley mercifully removed him after a truly disastrous outing. Brian faced 11 batters and retired just two of them, allowing eight hits and EIGHT RUNS. Ouch!!

For good measure, Ian Kinsler smacked an RBI single off Rob Bell before the O's finally ended the inning (to sarcastic cheers from the crowd). The Rangers sent 14 batters to the plate and scored nine runs on 10 hits, the worst damage a team has done to the O's in a single inning this year. It's a 14-3 Texas lead.

Man, I knew I was tempting fate when I mocked the Rangers' lineup yesterday.

8th inning: MAKE IT STOP. Please. Anyone. I'm begging you. This is the most torturous game I've ever witnessed. I cannot believe what I'm seeing. I feel like I'm about to burst into tears-- or flames. I want to go home, yet I'm stuck here watching this nauseating train wreck.

I don't want to be a recapper anymore. I'm questioning my entire life as I know it. Why am I here? What have I done to deserve this?

Remember when the Rangers scored nine runs in the sixth inning? Who would've known it'd be only their second most productive inning of the game? The Texas sluggers have just put up a 10-spot in the eighth inning. TEN RUNS. Seven of them came against Bell-- RBI singles by Catalanotto and Kinsler, then a grand slam by utility infielder Travis Metcalf. It was only the second time in Rangers' history they've hit two grand slams in a game. Bell became the third straight O's pitcher to be charged with at least six runs (Cabrera allowed six, Burres eight, and Bell seven).

Oh, and then Paul Shuey gave up a Murphy RBI single and a two-run homer to Saltalamacchia, his second of the game. Your score, ladies and gentlemen? 24-3. Twenty-four runs. The Rangers sent 13 batters to the plate in the eighth and pounded on 10 hits, tying their franchise record for most hits in a single inning.

Just forfeit. Seriously. The Orioles should call off the rest of this game and focus on rehabilitating in Game 2. This is an unmitigated fiasco. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

9th inning: You know, there comes a certain point when you have to laugh to keep from crying. The Orioles reached that point in the top of the 9th, as major-league records were smashed and re-smashed to eensy teensy tiny bits all around them. It was eye-popping, appalling-- and strangely entrancing. Look, if the O's are going to get humiliated, why not go all-out and get humiliated worse than any team has ever been humiliated before? Set the Guiness record for humiliation! (Speaking of Guiness, I could go for about 15 beers right now.) The Orioles, ladies and gentlemen, made their date with destiny and found themselves in the history books.

Twenty-four runs? What's that, really? We can do worse. Far worse. And so we did. Shuey by now was running on fumes, but somebody had to be thrown to the wolves and take a beating for the Birds (more of a beating than they'd already taken, that is), and Paul was that unlucky fellow.

He opened the ninth inning with back-to-back walks and a single, and the Rangers were off to the races. Again. A Botts double scored two runners, and Murphy hustled out an RBI infield single, which was significant for many reasons. #1: Dude, you're ahead by more than 20 runs-- you don't have to bust it out of the batter's box, necessarily. #2: Davidson once again blew the call at first, as Roberts's throw beat the runner, thus making Davidson the most heinous and evil umpire ever. And #3: with that run, the Rangers set a club record for most runs in a game, and the O's set a club record for most runs given up in a game. The previous record was set on April 19, 1996, when the Rangers beat the Orioles, 26-7 (as I recall, Manny Alexander pitched for the Birds in that game).

Oh, but there's more! No major-league team has ever scored 30 runs in a game in the last century. Until now!! For the first time since 1897, a ballclub reached the historic 3-0 milestone, when Vazquez crushed a mammoth three-run homer onto the flag court. HOLY MOLEY!! It was his second of the game, and the Rangers' sixth. It gave him (like Saltalamacchia) seven RBIs for the night. And the Camden Yards crowd couldn't help but erupt in spontaneous applause as the incredible "30" was placed in the Rangers' run column on the scoreboard. Shuey was charged with nine runs, which makes for an interesting pattern among the O's pitchers' box score lines. They had a guy who gave up six runs (Cabrera), seven (Bell), eight (Burres), and nine (Shuey). Still no word on why Freddie Bynum wasn't brought in to pitch.

Post-game thoughts: So...wow. Just wow. What on earth do we make of this? The Orioles just unveiled the most poorly pitched ballgame in any of our lifetimes. Go back as many generations as you need-- nobody has witnessed a more grotesque massacre on a baseball field than we witnessed tonight. Well...on the bright side, at least the Orioles will finally be mentioned in the sports highlights shows now! There's no ignoring them!

The bitterly ironic thing is that this was the Orioles' very first game since Trembley was named the manager for 2008. Trembley, of course, wasn't in much of a talking mood in a record-quick post-game interview. "You have a real short memory and you let it go," he said of this catastrophe. Asked if the Rangers were hitting good pitches as well as bad ones, Trembley replied, "I would say that's an understatement." Trembley said he didn't talk to the team after the game ended. "There's nothing that needs to be said." That was pretty much the extent of his interview. I wouldn't be too talkative either in his position. A game like this is absolute torture on a manager.

So I'm going to sign off for now...but I can't wait to see what Game 2 has in store! Gabbard got the win, he's 6-1. Cabrera falls to 9-13. And in the most ridiculous sub-plot of all, the Rangers' Wes Littleton earned a save-- A SAVE!!-- for pitching the final three innings. You gotta be kidding me! It was a 27-run margin of victory! When he entered the game, his team was up by 11! Why are baseball rules so dumb? O's lose, 30-3.