O's-Rays, D-Cab Can't Prevent The Sweep

Six walks. Nine hits. Those are not things one would want to see from Daniel Cabrera. That's not the knew D-Cab; that's the kind of game he would have in years past. Except back then he might have K'ed 4 or 5, instead of the one that he did have. That he only gave up four runs (all in the same inning and two on a homer by Carlos Pena) is pretty impressive. The O's made a game of it, scoring four themselves, including a home run by Rays' killer Aubrey Huff. With the game tied 4-4 with one out in the bottom of the ninth, Jason Johnson (who had already pitched 2.1 scoreless innings) was lifted in favor of George Sherrill. It was Sherrill's job to retire Pena and Evan Longoria to send the game into extras. He got ahead of Pena, but couldn't put him away. After the walk, Sherrill left a pitch up and out over the plate, and Longoria rocketed it into the gap in right-center. Pena was able to come all the way around from first to score, and the Rays took the game 5-4.

That makes it five losses in a row for the O's, who drop back down below .500 to 24-25. The team next heads to New York for three before coming home to host Boston. I thought that the O's would finish the month at 27-27, but they'll need to take three of the next five for that to happen. The way the team is playing now, that doesn't seem too likely.

In other news, Nick Markakis went 0-4 with a K. His line now stands at 247 / 369 / 418, and in his last 10 games he's just 7 for 49 (.143) with only two extra-base hits (a double and a homer), and 3 walks to 14 K's.