Blanked in the Bronx: Yanks, Kuroda shut out O's 3-0 in series finale

In their first appearance on ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" since 2008, the Orioles' bats were silent as they lost 3-0 to Hiroki Kuroda and the New York Yankees. This game was the decisive in the series, and with a win, the Orioles would have improved to 8-0 in series at Boston and New York since opening day 2012. They went a combined 19-53 in those ballparks from 2008-11 but are 16-8 since the start of last season in Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. Kuroda threw a complete-game, five-hitter on 113 pitches. He threw first-pitch strikes to 19 of 25 batters through the seventh inning and was at 99 pitches after eight. This is his fifth career shutout. This was the first time the Orioles were shut out since last Sept. 25 against Toronto and this was the first complete-game shutout against the Orioles since the Mets' R.A. Dickey threw one on June 18, 2012. New York scored all its runs off Wei-Yin Chen in the last of the fifth. Brennan Boesch and Francisco Cervelli led off with singles and Boesch scored later on a Jayson Nix sac fly. Then Brett Gardner came up and hit a two-run homer off the right field foul pole on the first pitch from Chen. The homer, Gardner's first against a lefty since July 3, 2010, made it a 3-0 New York lead. Chen pitched six innings, allowing six hits and three runs and threw 92 pitches. He is now 0-2 with a 4.00 ERA and is winless over his last 10 regular season starts since Aug. 19. The Orioles have scored three runs or fewer while he has been in the game in 19 of his last 27 starts. The Orioles fall to 6-6 overall and completed a 3-3 road trip to Boston and New York. They are 5-4 against AL East opponents. They are now 1 1/2 games behind division-leading Boston at 7-4. The Orioles now take Monday off and host Tampa Bay Tuesday night in the start of a nine-game homestand against the Rays, Dodgers and Blue Jays.