O's knock Mussina out with 7-run first, crush Yanks 12-2
The Orioles knocked Mike Mussina out of the game during a seven-run first inning in their 12-2 rout of New York on Tuesday night.
Adam Jones had a three-run double in the inning. Mussina lasted just 2/3 of an inning as this ties the shortest outing of his 512-start career.
Jones had a career-high 4 RBI. Kevin Millar hit a solo homer and scored three runs. Luke Scott added a two-run shot.
The O's have won 8 of their last 10 games and improve their record to 24-20. New York has lost four in a row.
Garrett Olson (3-0, 3.47) pitches Wednesday vs. NY's Darrel Rasner (2-0 3.00) in game two of the series.
O'S USE SEVEN-RUN FIRST TO ROUT YANKEES, 12-2
The Orioles scored seven runs in the first inning on their way to a 12-2 romp over the Yankees Tuesday night in the start of a three-game series. Mike Mussina was knocked out in the first, lasting just 2/3 of an inning as tonight ties the shortest outing of his 512-start career.
Aubrey Huff's two-out single made it 1-0. A costly error by Derek Jeter loaded the bases. Ramon Hernandez walked for a 2-0 lead. Then Adam Jones hit a three-run 2B to make it 5-0. Freddie Bynum produced an RBI single, and Brian Roberts' triple to left made it 7-0 and ended Mussina's night.
Kevin Millar hit a solo homer and scored three times. Luke Scott added a two-run HR. Jones went 4-5 with 4 RBI, new career highs in hits and RBI.
Winning pitcher Daniel Cabrera, now 5-1, allowed only two runs in seven innings. It's his 8th straight quality start and he is 2-0 vs. the Yankees this season.
The Orioles are 24-20 and have won 8 of their last 10 games. They are 3-1 vs. New York on the season.
The Yankees now have lost a season-high four in a row. They have lost 6 of 7 games and are 6-12 since April 28.
Alex Rodriguez returned from the DL for New York and hit a two-run homer in the 6th inning.
Balt 12-12-1
NYY 2-7-2
POST-GAME NOTES
SUCCESS VS. NEW YORK
The Orioles improved to 3-1 vs. New York on the season. In the three wins, they have outscored the Yankees, 26-4. They are now 13-10 in the last 23 meetings of the teams. The Birds are 5-1 combined on the season vs. Boston and New York.
MOOSE BASHING
Mike Mussina was looking to win his 6th straight start for the first time since 2003. Instead he left early, and tonight ties his shortest outing in his 512-start career.
His line tonight: .2ip, 5h, 7r, 1er, 2b, 1k......41 pitches.
He allowed a season-high seven runs and the Jeter two-out error made six of them unearned. He had allowed 7 runs total in his previous four starts, covering 22.1IP.
He is now 10-7 in his career vs. his former team. Tonight he made his 24th career start vs. Baltimore.
THE BIG FIRST
Mussina could have easily gotten out of it as the O's had a runner on second with two outs and none in. But an Aubrey Huff RBI single got it all started. Later a Jeter throwing error helped the O's load the bases as he failed to get the third out with the score then only 1-0. All of the O's run-scoring hits in the inning came with two outs.
Adam Jones ripped his 3-run double on an 0-2 pitch. Bynum and Roberts followed with RBIs. Mussina who had walked six all year, walked two in his short time on the mound.
The O's batted ten in the inning and scored seven on five hits, two walks and an error.
ADAM JONES BIG NIGHT
Jones began the night with just 1 RBI over his last 15 games. He finished with a career-high 4 hits and career-high 4 RBI. He had the four RBI by the second inning. He hit a three-run double in the first and RBI single in the second.
His 4-5 night raised his average from .247 to .265. He is now 11-21 (.524) during a six-game hit streak.
CABRERA NOTES
Cabrera has now won three starts in a row. He is 2-0, 2.77 this year vs. NY. He has pitched seven innings or more in five of his last six starts. Cabrera has allowed just one walk over his last 23 innings. The O's are now 8-1 when he starts. On the season he is now 5-1 with an ERA of 3.48. His ERA is 2.51 over this stretch of 8 straight quality starts.
FINAL NOTES
The O's also scored seven runs vs. NY during the 6th inning of the game in Baltimore on April 18th.......The 12 runs is a new season-high, breaking the previous mark of nine.......Scott's homer was his 3rd in his last five games...............The Orioles are 21-5 when scoring four runs or more..........O's are now 9-7 vs. AL East foes........Millar is 6-16 with two homers this season vs. NYY pitching...........the Yankees fall to 20-25......they have lost 6 of 7 games scoring just 14 runs in the 7 contests. The Yankees had allowed 5 unearned runs all year, then gave up 8 tonight. New York has allowed 23 runs in losing games Sunday and Tuesday.
Steve Melewski's live GameBlog
CORMIER IN FOR CABRERA
At the end of his warm up pitches to start the last of the 8th, Daniel Cabrera was then removed by Trembley for Lance Cormier. Maybe Cormier wasn't ready yet.
Cabrera tonight: 7ip, 5h, 2r-er, 0b, 4k.....86 pitches.
It's his 8th straight quality start during which his ERA is 2.51. He's about to be 2-0 vs. the Yankees this year.
LUKE'S REVENGE
Hawkins threw at his head in the 6th and Luke Scott hits a two-run homer in the 8th. It was an upper deck blast off Jose Veras, his 4th homer of the year. That makes it 12-2 O's in the 8th.
AN A-BOMB FROM A-ROD
O's 10 NYY 2.....end of six
A-Rod takes a 93 MPH Cabrera fastball over the left center fence for a two-run shot to make it 10-2. It's his 5th homer of the year and 43rd in his career vs. Baltimore.
Cabrera has allowed two runs on four hits thru six. He has thrown 80 pitches.
BAD MOVE
O's 10 NYY 0.......middle of 6th
Well, this can liven up a 10-0 game. Latroy Hawkins was just ejected for throwing at Luke Scott's head in the sixth. He had thrown a previous pitch inside to Scott and one vs. Huff. Hawkins was obviously retaliating for Jeter getting hit on the hand in the 3rd inning, as if Cabrera was throwing at Jeter with a 9-0 lead.
Just before the pitch, Gary Thorne asked Jim Palmer if anyone on the Yankees would throw at an Oriole because Jeter got plunked. Palmer said "no way, unless you are some loose cannon." He later said it was "stupidity" that Hawkins did what he did.
Hawkins was immediatley ejected, the benches emptied but not much happened.
Should be interesting to see if anything else developes as these teams will play six times in nine games.
Derek Jeter, by the way, has a contusion on his hand. He is day to day. Injury, it appears, not serious.
THE TENTH RUN
Kevin Millar's solo HR in the 4th made it 10-0 Orioles. It's his 6th homer.
That's a season-high 10 runs now, surpassing the nine they got in the second game of the season vs. Tampa. Millar has scored three runs tonight. Later in the inning, Adam Jones had an infield-single and he is 3-3 with 4 RBI.
JETER OUT OF GAME
In the last of the third, Derek Jeter got plunked on the left wrist or hand by a tight fastball from Cabrera, who was trying to bust him in on a 2-1 pitch. Jeter left the game and Alberto Gonzalez came in to run for him. O's lead 9-0 after three frames.
MUSSINA NOTES
Coming into this start he had allowed seven runs over his last four starts, covering 22.1 IP. Tonight he gives up seven runs in 2/3 of an inning.
Coming into tonight he had walked just three of the last 168 batters he faced. Tonight he walked two of the 10 batters he faced.
His ERA went up from 3.99 to 4.11. He will not win his 6th straight start. He last did that in 2003.
Tonight was his 512th and shortest start of his career.
O'S GET TWO MORE
O's 9 NYY 0......middle of second
Millar walked vs. Ohlendorf with two outs in the second. Then Luke Scott hit a fly near the left-field line. Johnny Damon staggered around it, then dropped it as Millar scored to make it 8-0.
After a walk, Adam Jones looped an RBI single into right to make it 9-0. That's a career-high 4 RBI for Jones. He knocked in three on 4-24 at Seattle.
That's eight unearned runs tonight. The Yankees, to say the least, look awful.
ANOTHER SEVEN-SPOT VS. NY
Tonight's 7-run first inning is the O's second seven-run inning this year vs. NY. On Friday, April 18 in Baltimore, the Birds had a 7-run 6th to break a 1-1 tie. That inning came vs. Philip Hughes and Latroy Hawkins. The O's won that one, 8-2.
O'S WITH HUGE FIRST-INNING
O's 7 NYY 0...........middle of first
Brian Roberts started the game with a leadoff walk, just the 7th walk Mussina has issued this year. He went to second on Mora's groundout. With two outs, Aubrey Huff came up with a clutch RBI single to right for a 1-0 lead. It's his 24th RBI.
Later in the inning, Derek Jeter's throwing error with two outs allowed the O's to load the bases. Then Mussina walked Ramon Hernandez on four pitches for a 2-0 O's lead.
Then, on an 0-2 pitch that Mussina left up over the outside corner, Adam Jones ripped a three-run double to deep right for a 5-0 lead. Freddie Bynum followed with an RBI single to make it 6-0. The inning still wasn't over. Brian Roberts tripled to left for a 7-0 lead. Mussina was removed at that point. He pitched just 2/3 of an inning.
One amazing inning for the Orioles. The Jeter two-out error means six of the runs were unearned.
ALL the run-scoring hits came with two outs. Mussina had two outs and one man on and went on to give up seven runs. Amazing!
Mussina: .2ip, 5h, 7r, 1er, 2b, 1k.........41 pitches
UNDERWAY IN NEW YORK
Game one of the series is underway in NY. Believe it or not, even if the Yankees swept three, the O's would STILL be ahead of NY in the standings.
Don't bury them yet, however. The Yankees had this same record last year, but then went 74-44 to take the wild card.
NY has scored just 179 runs, its fewest in 44 games since 1990.
When the O's took two of three from New York in April, the O's batted .283 as a team and pitched to an ERA of 3.00.
PRE-GAME NOTES
So maybe now the O's are playing better ball vs. New York. In fact, the O's are 12-10 in their last 22 games against the Yankees. They had lost the season series nine straight years versus New York until they went 9-9 last season against the Yankees.
Right now, the Orioles are in third place and have won 7 of their last 9 games. New York has lost three in a row and 5 of 6 games to fall into last place in the AL East. Since April 28, the Yankees are 6-11.
New York has been struggling on offense. The Yankees, who have scored just 12 runs over their last six games, are 8th in the league in batting average, 11th in runs scored and 12th in team ERA at 4.48.
Alex Rodriguez, out since April 28 when he was placed on the DL with a strained right quad, is expected back for New York tonight. The three-time MVP went 3-10 in two games in Florida at extended spring training.
In 154 career games vs. Orioles pitching, A-Rod has hit .311--42-135. In 24 games this season he is batting .286--4--11.
The O'S Over the Last Nine Games
Starting pitching: 7-2 with a 3.30 ERA. (21er - 57.1 ip)
The offense: scored 40 runs, team ave of .263, 9 homers
The results: 7 wins in 9 games
Tonight's Pitchers
Daniel Cabrera tonight makes his 10th start of the season, his 6th on the road and his 15th career start against the Yankees. Cabrera is 4-1 with a 3.58 ERA and has recorded seven straight quality starts.
Not only is Cabrera giving the O's quality pitching, but he is now going deep into games. He has pitched 23.1 innings over his last three starts, and he has pitched 7 innings or more in four of his last five starts.
Dave Trembley has talked about Cabrera's poise when in jams this year, and Cabrera allows a batting average of just .178 when pitching with runners in scoring position.
Cabrera, a winner of his last two starts vs. KC and Boston, has allowed 2 earned runs orless in five of his last seven starts. His ERA over the seven starts is 2.50. The O's are 7-1 when he starts this season.
On September 28, 2006, Cabrera took a no-hitter into the 9th at Yankee Stadium. He lost the no-hitter on a Robinson Cano one-out single and wound up with a one-hit, 7-1 victory.
Cabrera has already beaten New York once this season. On April 18 he got the win allowing six hits and two runs over six innings.
Last year vs. NY, he went 1-3, 6.67, and in his career vs. the Yankees he is 4-6, 4.81 in 14 starts.
Former Oriole Mike Mussina (6-3, 3.99) takes the ball tonight for New York, set to make his 10th start of the season and 24th in his career vs. the Orioles.
In 49.2 IP this season, Mussina has allowed more homers (7) than walks (6). He has pitched seven innings just once in nine starts and has thrown over 92 pitches just once all season.
The 39-year-old righty got off to a poor start but has really turned it around. In his first four starts this season, he went 1-3, 5.75. Over his past five starts, he is 5-0, 2.76 (29.1 IP, 9ER, 32 walks).
Mussina, set to make his 512th career start, was an O's first-round draft pick (20th overall) out of Stanford in 1990. With Baltimore, he went 147-81, 3.53 and he is 3rd on the O's all-time wins list and 2nd in strikeouts.
Last season, Mussina was 11-10, 5.15 in 27 starts.
In 2007, he was 1-1, 6.75 in three starts vs. the Orioles. His career mark vs. Baltimore is 10-6, 4.51 in 23 starts.
The Game Plan vs. Mussina
Over his last four starts, Mussina has thrown 92, 84, 86 and 87 pitches. He just isn't going deep into games anymore. The O's need to work some deep counts vs. Mussina, especially if he is not sharp. He hates nothing more than a 10-pitch at bat with a lot of foul balls.
Its rare to see Mussina show emotion, but he can become frustrated vs. the team that works the count and makes him work.
An O's staffer once told me Mussina even counts his warm-up pitches for his pitch count. Guys like B-Rob, Mora and Millar need to battle deep into counts. That will keep Mussina from getting much more than five innings and it's never a bad thing to get well into a team's bullpen, especially in the first game of a series.
Let's see if the O's can make Mussina have one or two, 20-pitch innings tonight. If they do, I see an Orioles win vs. their former ace.
O'S Hitters, 2008 vs. Yankees
Luis Hernandez: 2-5
Ramon Hernandez: 3-6, 2 2B, 2 rbi
Aubrey Huff: 2-5, 2B, 2 rbi
Adam Jones: 2-12, rbi
Nick Markakis: 3-9, 2B, rbi
Kevin Millar: 4-12, HR, rbi, 3 runs
Melvin Mora: 2-14, 2 rbi
Jay Payton: 3-5, 2 rbi
Guillermo Quiroz: 1-4, 2B
Brian Roberts: 1-12, rbi
Luke Scott: 3-11, 2B, rbi
The Rivera Factor
This season, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is 11-11 in saves. In 17 ip he has allowed just 1er on 9 hits with no walks. Usually when he comes in, its over for the opponent. But that's not always true when he faces the O's.
Last year he had 3 saves vs. the O's, but an ERA of 8.00. He allowed 8er and 17 hits in 9 innings vs. the Orioles. His career ERA vs. Baltimore is 3.72. His ERA in his career is higher (3.73) vs. just one American League team, the Angels. He has allowed 8 career homers vs. the Birds, his most vs. any AL opponent.
Nick the Stick vs. New York
Markakis 2006 vs. NYY: .403--2--13, along with 10 doubles
Markakis career vs. NYY: .319--4--22 in 38 games, 14 doubles
He has a career OBP of .402 and career slugging of .500 vs. the Yankees.
Interleague Play After the First Weekend
AL: 22 wins, .276 average, 4.7 runs per game, 51 homers
NL: 19 wins, .260 average, 4.5 runs per game, 43 homers
Hitting vs. Moose
Brian Roberts: .462 average (18-39) with 6 doubles
Kevin Millar: .421 average (16-38), 2 homers, 8 rbi
Alex Cintron: .400 average (4-10)
Melvin Mora: .333 average (14-42), 1 homer, 6 rbi
Nick Markakis: .333 (4-12)
Aubrey Huff: .286 average (14-49), 1 homer, 4 rbi
The Orioles-Yankees game played on Tuesday, May 20 was broadcast in HD on the cable and satellite systems that carry MASN's HD programming. Currently Verizon is not broadcasting MASN in HD. Verizon hopes to launch MASN HD later this year however a firm launch date has not been set. We apologize for the issue and assure you that Verizon is committed to offering their customers the latest in HD content. For more information, customers can call Verizon's Customer Service line at 888-553-1555
Why is it that I'm watching this game that masn is claiming to be shown in HD (on verizon fois, so if it is HD, it would truely be HD), but its not? You are simply showing this game in a widescreen format. None of the detail is there that would be there if this were truely being shown in HD.
Whats the deal here? And don't try fooling me into thinking that it is HD, because I know HD when i see it, and this is not it.