Early offense carries Oakland to a win in the series opener

The Orioles run of excellent starting pitching ended tonight as Oakland scored three early runs off Jake Arrieta and went on to a 5-2 win over the Orioles in front of 18,297 on a chilly night at Camden Yards. After watching their starters pitch to an ERA of 0.71 during a four-game win streak, allowing just two earned runs over the last 25 1/3 innings, Arrieta allowed four runs on four hits tonight over 5 2/3 innings. He takes the loss to fall to 1-2 with an ERA of 4.45. Arrieta had an ERA of 2.66 after his first three starts, but has given up nine runs, all earned, in 10 innings over his past two starts. He almost got out of the second without allowing a run but a Kurt Suzuki two-out, RBI double gave Oakland a 1-0 lead and Eric Sogard followed with a two-run homer for a 3-0 edge. Oakland had scored just 59 runs during its 10-10 start, the fewest by any A's team ever through 20 games. The Orioles have now lost 23 of their past 31 games against the A's and are 35-78 ag ainst Oakland since the beginning of the 1999 season. The Orioles have now scored five or fewer runs in 10 straight games but have won six of those ten contests. They fall to 12-8 on the year and 6-4 at home. Winning pitcher Brandon McCarthy gave up two runs and five hits over seven innings, throwing 97 pitches to improve to 1-3 with an ERA of 3.23 through six starts. Oakland pitching, which began today second in the American League with a team ERA of 2.71, had worked to an even better ERA of 1.99 in its previous eight contests. The Orioles could have gone six games over .500, at 13-7, with a win tonight. It would have been the first time an O's club was six games over .500 since the Orioles were 50-44 on July 20, 2005. In game two of this series, Saturday night at 7:05, Wei-Yin Chen (1-0, 2.60) pitches against A's right-hander Tyson Ross (1-0, 2.13).