O's use walks and Guthrie's effort to win in series opener

Oakland pitchers walked the first two batters in the fourth and sixth innings tonight and the Orioles turned that into three runs in a 5-1 win over the A's in front of 14,686 Tuesday at Camden Yards. Ty Wigginton and Adam Jones had sac flies in the sixth after the O's took advantage of an error to plate a run in the fourth. Nick Markakis hit a solo homer in the eighth. It was just his third of the year and first in 22 games since May 1st when he homered vs. Boston. Later that inning, Matt Wieters plated the fifth O's run with an RBI double, his first extra-base hit since May 8th Jeremy Guthrie struggled with his command at times, but won for the third time in four starts. He allowed just one run on six hits over six innings, throwing 113 pitches. He is now 3-4, 3.64. It was Guthrie's 50th career home Orioles start and he improved to 13-22, 4.22 with 27 quality starts in those games. Over his last three starts, Guthrie has allowed just 3 ER over 20 innings for an ERA of 1.35. Mark Hendrickson pitched shutout ball over the seventh and eighth and Will Ohman pitched the ninth in a non-save situation. Oakland had won 13 of its last 15 games vs. Baltimore. The O's improved to 9-12 at home, 13-15 over the last 28 games, 2-3 on the year vs. the A's and 15-31 on the season.