Jeremy Guthrie had his poorest outing to date and the Orioles hitters weren't able to do enough against CC Sabathia as the O's fell to the Yankees 8-3. The Yankees scored 6 runs in the first three innings, topped off by Robinson Cano's 6th home run of the year. All told Guthrie was charged with 7 runs (6 earned) in his 4.2 innings. He was relieved by Mark Hendrickson, who allowed the inherited runner to score and then gave up a run of his own in the 7th on three consecutive singles. With 8 runs scored, the Yankees were finally finished. Cla Meredith, Matt Albers, and Will Ohman finished the game without allowing further damage. Well, further damage other than the fact that the Orioles used four relievers in a game in which they were down by 5 runs.
CC Sabathia pitched 7.2 innings but he was hardly dominant. He allowed 11 hits and 2 walks but only gave up 3 runs as the Orioles left 8 men on base. Matt Wieters had a particularly bad night, striking out three times against Sabathia and leaving 5 men on himself. The Orioles scored single runs in the third, sixth, and seventh innings on a ground out by Miguel Tejada, a sacrifice fly by Nolan Reimold, and on Nick Markakis' first home run of the year. Nick has really come on at the plate and it was nice to see him finally show some power. Nick ended the night 3-5 with a double to go along with his HR.
An all around uninspired game by the Orioles, it was actually the kind of routine loss that hasn't been happening for the Orioles lately. No late inning implosions, no just fallen short comebacks, just a straight up loss.
The most exciting thing that happened this evening wasn't in Baltimore, but rather Gwinnett (wherever that is). Chris Tillman pitched a no hitter for the Norfolk Tides, taking down the Gwinnett Braves. Tillman struck out 6 and walked 1, with one other batter reaching on an error. It took Tillman 105 pitches to complete the game with 13 ground outs to 6 fly balls. Tillman got a rough start to the season but has now had two good starts in a row in which he's pitched at least 8 innings. If he continues it'll be just a matter of time before he's back in Baltimore.
The O's go for their first series win of the year tomorrow as Brian Matusz faces AJ Burnett. Brian Matusz Day is pretty much every Orioles fan's favorite day of the week, and I'll be at the game to see him in person. I hope that I'm not blinded by his brilliance.