Showalter, Norris and Hundley talk after 7-2 loss

CHICAGO - The Orioles were held to two hits today over the final seven innings, the bats never heating up after a rain delay that lasted 3 hours, 9 minutes. It's unfortunate for the Orioles that the weather knocked Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks out of the game. They collected two runs and five hits off him in two innings. Orioles starter Bud Norris couldn't stay loose during the delay because Wrigley Field lacks an indoor mound. Not that he would have returned after such a long layoff, but the decision was made almost immediately. So many challenges today, such a disappointing swing through the north side for the Orioles. "It's what we do," manager Buck Showalter said following a 7-2 loss. "Everybody's had experience with it before and I'd rather do that than come back and play tomorrow. Both teams were working in the same environment. Obviously, their environment's a little better over there, but I don't know. Doesn't matter. It's not really a factor, all things considered, because it's a pretty level playing field. "They pitched real well, made a lot of quality pitches. We just couldn't string anything together. Ubaldo (Jimenez) presented himself pretty well except for the four-pitch walk. He had the 75 pitches in four innings. That's still a lot of pitches, but he was pretty effective and I was glad to see that. We thought it was a good opportunity to get him back out there and he could almost treat it like a start. But they pitched well. "I'd like to have seen if we hadn't had any rain. We had some good at-bats off Hendricks early, but they did off Bud, too." Norris turned in his shortest outing of the season, but he didn't have much choice. "Well, we knew we didn't have a facility where you could throw between," Showalter said. "There's no place to throw here to keep a guy warm, unlike other ballparks, so once a guy's out of there at the 20- or 30-minute mark, he's done for me. Three and a half hours, and he threw 30-some pitches in the second inning, so unless there was a real short delay, he wouldn't have gone back out there. But we had no place to keep him warm or throw anyway because the facility just doesn't allow it like other parks." Said Norris: "It's definitely up to skipper and stuff like that and as a mentality standpoint, you just have to try to stay in it as long as you can, keep loose, keep the headphones on, pace the clubhouse. That being said, they told me a little after an hour that I was probably done. I was a little frustrated. I had a good stretch. I wanted to keep going out there and keep pitching and keep winning ballgames. Tough day, big long rain delay kind of hurt us." Norris retired the Cubs in order in the first inning before surrendering four runs in the second, the last three on Chris Coghlan's bases-clearing triple. "The first inning wasn't very good at all," Norris said. "I got behind on those hitters. I ended up getting them out, and then in the second inning, I felt like I got ahead of a couple of guys and then some balls kind of fell in. I threw an 0-2 fastball, kind of a bleeder down the third base line with a fast runner. The next pitch is a cutter to a left-handed hitter and he bleeds one into left. I got myself into that situation, trying to make pitches, and it was tough. It happened really quick in a hurry. I kept making pitches." Coghlan was 0-for-16 with six strikeouts vs. Norris before the triple. "It's tough," Norris said. "We grind every pitch, every pitch, and to have him put a good swing on that pitch, it hurt me and us pretty big today, unfortunately. I've got to get better." Norris didn't want to use the elements, including a heavy fog that rolled in, as an excuse for his struggles. "You never want to make excuses and I've never been that guy," he said. "I never really will, but you are battling the elements. You're really grinding. I don't think I've had to go to the rosin bag in one half-inning. A lot of foul balls, too. "I felt like they were probably having a hard time seeing it out of the fog and stuff, but like I said, there were a lot of foul balls that half-inning and it was a quirky half-inning for me and us and it was a little frustrating in the same token. But I know I have to just forget it and get back out there the next time." Were the two hits after the second a product of the delay or good Cubs pitching? "It's both," said catcher Nick Hundley, who singled in the seventh. "We didn't swing the bats particularly well and they pitched well. That happens sometimes. If it rains earlier or it rains later, you don't know what's going to happen. Unfortunately, they got after us pretty good and it'll be a challenge to go out there tomorrow and try to win." The Cubs have nothing to lose at this stage of the season and they look much better than their 57-72 record indicates. "Yeah, you know that this time of year," Showalter said. "We've been in those shoes, too. They're a good, solid aggressive bunch and they're trying to establish themselves in their organization. They've got a lot of good young players. They've been drafting well and high and they've done well with it. Their intensity level is always going to be good. They've got a lot of things to establish and prove, as we do." "They play hard," Norris said. "They have a good team that's young and up and coming and they've got a lot of things going on their way. It's just a long day for us. We have to pick up our heads and get back out here tomorrow." Jimenez made his first relief appearance since his major league debut on Sept. 26, 2006. He allowed one run and three hits in four innings, with one walk and five strikeouts. "I thought he was good," Hundley said. "He's a professional. He's going to go out there and try to do the best he can. When he's called on to go out there and try to do something he hasn't done a whole lot in the past, it's not going to be the easiest thing for him. But he went out there and battled, competed and threw strikes. "He's a professional. He's still working like crazy. He's not going to give up. He's very tough-minded, tough mentally, and for him to go out there and give us a chance to win was impressive. "Once he got out there and got his rhythm going, he was great. Like I said, he's a professional. He's working his tail off, so he's going to be fine." The Yankees won again today, but the Orioles hold a seven-game lead in the American League East. "We've earned that," Norris said. "We've played such good baseball in and out. But we're not necessarily looking at the games we're ahead, we're looking at the games we can control and those are the games that we play. We're just trying to put more Ws in the win column and I think that's the No. 1 priority. "We've got a lot of baseball left against our own division and we're definitely not looking back, we're looking forward." Said Hundley: "It's the end of August. We still got 30-something games to go. It's a long way from over. We're playing really good baseball. We're going to try to continue to do that. In a long season, you lose a couple in a row sometimes like this. We've been playing great. We're not going to let this hiccup affect us more than it should. We're going to go out and try to win tomorrow."