Try to score a run just to not get shut out, and thrown out at home to end the game.
Josh Towers was sort of reminiscent of an old school Greg Maddux, except he scattered more hits. A complete game shutout with under 100 pitches. More than Towers being terribly great, it was just another case of the Orioles being unable to get anything going.
Cabrera was hideous again, and his recent regression has nudged me back off the bandwagon a bit. I like Cabrera, and I think he has the stuff to be dominant, but he also has enough of the anti-stuff to get shuttled into a short relief role, which would be a fantastic waste of an arm like his, no matter how good he was at it.
Cabrera's line wasn't so bad, really: four innings with five runs, but only one earned. That only tells part of the story, though. He gave up four in the first, none earned because of a Melvin Mora throwing error that took Cabrera from looking like the in-control cool customer into being the wildly unpredictable madman he turns into sometimes when the slightest bump in the road comes up.
Cabrera needs to spend the upcoming offseason working on his control first and his head second. I don't think it's a stretch at this point to call him a bit of a headcase on the mound in a Rick Ankiel sort of way. When you get two quick outs and an error causes a single, a double off the wall, a three-run homer, another single, and then a headhunter-style plunking of Eric Hinske, you might need to work on your mindset as a pitcher.
Too often Cabrera still gets trapped into trying to man up with his heat. Jim Hunter and Buck Martinez talked about the same thing, going from being a pitcher to a thrower, the same thing Steve Stone rightly criticized Kerry Wood for. Throwers blow out their arms, and throwers throw hard, flat fastballs. Cabrera can pitch. And I like some attitude in a player, especially a power pitcher (I am a huge Roger Clemens fan, for instance), but Cabrera too often becomes a cowboy in all the wrong ways.
At this point I'm not even disappointed by the losses anymore. I mean, sure, I am, but what can you do? This thing is beyond our control as fans. The most I can do at this point is take the good days and get something out of those, and look a little ahead toward the future, namely next season, and also what we can actually accomplish the rest of the way this year.
Since DuBose pitched tonight in relief, I think it's safe to assume that John Maine will get the nod tomorrow. That should be something at least.