Your daily Xavier Avery blog entry (tied 2-2)

As opposed to your nightly one. We have a 12:35 p.m. start here. Xavier Avery reached on an infield hit to lead off the bottom of the first inning. Red Sox pitcher Daniel Bard fielded the ball on the right side of the mound and made an off-balance throw that skipped past first baseman Kevin Youkilis. He had no shot at the speedy rookie. Avery advanced to second on Robert Andino's single, tagged and took third on Nick Markakis' fly ball to left field, and tagged again and scored on Chris Davis' bases-loaded fly ball to medium center. Not many players go from second to third on a fly ball to left, though Avery's done it twice since having his contract purchased. And I didn't think Davis' ball was hit deep enough to drive in a run. Avery dived into Boston catcher Kelly Shoppach, who was blocking the plate. His hand sneaked under the tag, but that's a good way to suffer an injury. Better to slide next time if he doesn't want to plow into a guy in catching gear. That's eight runs for Avery in his first 11 major league games. The Orioles have staked Jake Arrieta to an early 1-0 lead. Let's see if he can give them a shut-down inning in the second. Update: Arrieta loaded the bases with no outs in the second and escaped with only one run scoring on Scott Podsednik's double play grounder. Arrieta allowed two hits and walked two batters. Nick Johnson quickly broke the 1-1 tie with his third home run of the season leading off the bottom of the second. He entered the game batting .324/.425/.618 in May. Update II: Avery recorded his first major league outfield assist on a 7-6-2 play that prevented Kevin Youkilis from scoring the go-ahead run in the third. Youkilis held up for whatever reason. Nice tag by catcher Luis Exposito. Consistency still eludes Arrieta. After allowing one run over seven innings in his last start in Washington, he's permitted two runs and five hits, walked three, struck out one and thrown 64 pitches in three innings today. Adam Jones just extended his hitting streak to 15 games, the longest this season by an Oriole.