BALTIMORE _ Throughout the Orioles' seven-game winning streak, manager Buck Showalter's favored refrain was that his club was able to dial up whatever was required offensively on a given night.
It ended Thursday night at Camden Yards with an 11-8 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, as starter Jeremy Hellickson and the relief duo of Richard Bleier and Mychal Givens provided too large a task for the game's hottest offense.
Staked to leads of 3-0 and 5-2 in the early innings, Hellickson allowed five runs in the fifth inning and left with a 7-5 deficit. The Orioles (68-66) cut that margin in half in the bottom of that inning, but the Blue Jays (62-72) expanded it to 10-6 on a three-run home run by designated hitter Kendrys Morales in the sixth.
Morales provided problems for Hellickson en route to finishing with three home runs and seven RBIs. He homered in the third inning after Hellickson issued a two-out walk to scalding Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson, and added an RBI single in the fifth. Morales' third homer came off Givens in the eighth.
Later in the fifth, Hellickson ceded consecutive two-run doubles to catcher Miguel Montero and center fielder Kevin Pillar to end his day.
Hellickson (8-8) was charged with seven runs in 42/3 innings, and has a 6.55 ERA since joining the Orioles in late July.
Bleier got out of the fifth inning and retired the first two batters of the sixth before first baseman Steve Pearce doubled off him, bringing in Givens. Givens walked Donaldson and allowed a massive home run to Morales to put the Orioles in a big hole. Morales homered for a third time in the eighth inning, again off Givens, to produce Toronto's 11th run.
Darren O'Day was the lone bright spot on the mound, with his scoreless ninth giving him 142/3 innings of two-run ball this month, lowering his ERA to 3.86.
The loss drops the Orioles to 2{ games behind the Minnesota Twins for the second wild-card playoff spot as they enter September.
The Orioles plated two runs in the eighth inning to try and claw their way back, but saw their rally dry up before they got back within reach. Designated hitter Mark Trumbo doubled to open the inning and scored when shortstop Tim Beckham singled and Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista committed an error.
After a single by third baseman Manny Machado, who had two hits on the day, second baseman Jonathan Schoop scored Beckham on an infield single to mark his 100th RBI of the season.
However, the Jays brought in closer Roberto Osuna, who got center fielder Adam Jones to ground out and end the eighth before he pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
Last year, the Orioles hit 55 home runs in August to tie for the most ever hit in that month. Jones ensured on Thursday that they wouldn't share that distinction with anyone going forward.
His first-inning, two-run home run was the Orioles' 56th this month, breaking the record they couldn't push past last year. Chris Davis' fifth-inning home run was No. 57, putting them one shy of the major league record of any month, set by the Orioles in May 1987 and tied by the Seattle Mariners in May 1999.
August has been a booming month for the Orioles offense, which entered Thursday averaging 5.96 runs per game and batting .303 as a team with a .879 OPS.
With three hits, including an RBI single in the second inning and base hits in the sixth and eighth innings, Beckham has 50 hits since joining the Orioles in a July 31 trade.
That's two more than his predecessor, injured shortstop J.J. Hardy, has all season with the Orioles. Hardy played in 64 games before he fractured his wrist. Beckham has played 29 games with the Orioles.
Even with their lower stations in the lineup, Davis and designated hitter Trumbo were able to create offense at the bottom part of the order. Davis drove in a run with a groundout and Trumbo followed it up with an RBI single of his own to extend the Orioles' lead to 5-2 in the third.
