Daniel Cabrera loses his 9th game of the year.
Cabrera let a bad call disrupt his game a little in the first inning. Gary Matthews hit the ball of the top of the fence and it was ruled a homerun. After that, Cabrera walked a bunch and let in 2 more runs. For the night he game up 5 runs (4 earned) over 5 innings, striking out 7, but walking 4 and giving up 8 hits. Bruce Chen came in and pitched like Bruce Chen, giving 3 hits, 2 runs, and a homer to Mark Teixeira. That makes Tex 7-11 lifetime against Chen with, get this, 6 homeruns. Pretty impressive. Russ Ortiz actually pitched decent again, not like it mattered…
The bottom of the order was terrible tonight, going hitless. But the top half actually did pretty well. Brian Roberts had a couple of hits, Nick Markakis had 3 hits including a double and his 14th homerun, and Jay Gibbons added a double of his own. The rest of the lineup contributed a hit each. But it wasn’t enough to make up for the pitching performances.
Markakis watch: 3-5 (.312)
Tomorrow night is Erik Bedard’s (12-9, 3.92) turn to pitch in the rotation. He’ll be facing Joe Blanton (14-10, 4.45) for the A’s. Go O’s.
