Opponents 8, Orioles 1

You want good news? The Orioles didn't give up a run in the eighth or ninth inning for the first time this season. That's progress. I respect the fans who applauded Luke Scott's one-out walk in the bottom of the ninth inning. I won't question their sanity. Way to stay in the game.
Garrett Atkins followed with a little roller in front of the plate. The catcher picked up the ball and tagged Atkins on the foot for the out, a play I can't recall seeing in all my years covering baseball. I'm sure it's happened, I just don't remember it. The Orioles went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, making them 10-for-66 this season. That's a .152 average. So the Orioles will lug a 1-8 record to Oakland. Not sure if that's considered carry-on or if they need to check it. "It's not the end of the world. We haven't played well. We expect that we'll play better. We'll go on the road and see if we can get one under our belt," manager Dave Trembley said. "Obviously, when it snowballs like this, maybe this is the final purge. Maybe we got it all out of our system. Maybe this is the last of it. Let's hope. It can't go on forever. "It's not how you draw it up. You didn't want to come in here and start like this. We certainly had a lot of opportunities to win our fair share of the games and we didn't. Losing ought to say how frustrated and disappointed everybody is. A lot of baseball to play, though. A lot of baseball to play. "When you're winning, you think you're invincible. Everything goes your way. You ride that thing out as long as you can, but you eventually know it's going to end. On the other side, when you're losing and you continue to lose a lot of games like we have, you go to yourself, 'Hey, can anything possibly happen to make it any worse?' You finally just want to get it all done with and let's see if we can go in another direction, and eventually you'll go that way. You hope it's sooner rather than later. It's not pleasant, it's not fun, it's nothing to downplay, but it's obviously something that wears on everybody." Brad Bergesen's ERA jumped to 11.74 after allowing five earned runs (eight total) in three-plus innings. "Kind of similar to what I saw the last time he pitched. Sporadic with movement on his sinker. A lot of pitches flat," Trembley said. "Kranny was talking to him a lot in between innings, mechanically, getting underneath some pitches. And obviously you know when you give good teams, and Tampa's shown they're a good team, you give them a little crack and a little opening and they took advantage of it right in the first inning there. "Bergesen is not showing the consistent movement on his sinker that we saw earlier in the spring." Great job by Jason Berken, who held the Rays to one run and three hits in five innings. He walked one and struck out five. "Saved the bullpen," Trembley said. "Came in and threw strikes. Pitched last night, comes in and throws a lot of pitches today and did very well." As for the missed popup in the first inning, Cesar Izturis called out to Miguel Tejada that he lost the ball in the sun. Tejada couldn't make the play. I couldn't make this up. I'm driving home and making dinner for my daughter. I know, I shouldn't take out my frustration on her.