Jaret Wright loses his second game in a row.
Jaret Wright was pitching a great game until he injured his shoulder in the 6th inning. Before that, he gave up 3 hits in 5 innings and struck out five batters. In the 6th, the first batter hit a ball off of Wright for a single, Jaret walked the next batter, and then he left the game with the trainer. Scott Williamson came in after that and suddenly the bases were loaded with no outs. He struck out the next batter and then got a ground ball to Miguel Tejada for the douple play, but Brian Roberts threw the ball past Kevin Millar at first base, allowing 2 runs to score. No more damage was done in the inning. Jeremy Guthrie came in for the 7th and he went 3 strong innings to finish the game. He gave up 3 hits and a run while striking out 3.
The Orioles did almost nothing at the plate tonight, which was not surprising since there was a left handed pitcher starting for the Tigers in Nate Robertson. The Orioles have struggled against lefties for the longest time and have never done anything about until this year, when the signed Jon Knott, Jason DuBois, and JR House, but those guys are all in AAA so we don’t have anything to do about left handed pitchers other than what we had last year. The only hits were singles from Nick Markakis, Miguel Tejada, and Jay Gibbons, a double from Kevin Millar, and Corey Patterson’s first homerun of the season. Patterson’s homerun came off of Joel Zumaya, a right handed pitcher, and was too little, too late. But if it wasn’t for the error by Brian Roberts, the game would have gone into extra innings.
Player of the game: Corey Patterson - 1-3, HR, RBI
Tomorrow night we get a chance to come back and win the series against the Tigers in what should be a great pitching match up. Adam Loewen (1-0, 3.60) goes up against the reigning rookie of the year, Justin Verlander (0-0, 0.00), who pitched great last time out. Go O’s.
