Baseball-Reeling Blue Jays suffer seventh straight loss

BALTIMORE, May 25 (Reuters) - The Toronto Blue Jays lost their seventh straight game as Jeremy Guthrie pitched seven strong innings to lead the Baltimore Orioles to a 4-1 win on Monday.

The Blue Jays led the American League East until they fell out of first place on Sunday and Monday's loss put them down to third behind the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

Toronto was the top hitting team in the major leagues until the skid -- the Jays have managed just 11 runs in the seven losses.

"In the first part of the season we were getting a lot of timely hits," Toronto manager Cito Gaston told reporters. "Now we're just not getting hits with guys in scoring position. That will beat you every time."

Gaston said his team will not panic even though the slump now has them 1 1/2 games behind the front-running Red Sox, who the Jays led by 3 1/2 games before losing three straight at Fenway Park last week.

"I've had teams that have won divisions and been in the World Series that went through this, too," Gaston said. "It does happen sometimes."

Aubrey Huff drove in two runs for the Orioles, who had lost 14 of their previous 17 games to Toronto dating back to last season, including five of their last six at Camden Yards. Brian Roberts added two hits and scored twice for Baltimore.

"Toronto has given us some hard times in the last couple years, and certainly they are playing good baseball this year," Roberts said. "So for us to beat a good team in our own division, yeah, I think that is something we can build on a little bit."

Guthrie (4-4) gave up seven hits, walked one and struck out four. Guthrie allowed only three runners to reach second base after giving up a first-inning run.