O's-Rays, A Loss & A Loss

Brian Burres took his second loss of the year and his ERA raised to 2.87 (gasp!) in a day-game to close out the three game set against the Rays. The O's dropped the rubber game, as Burres went 6 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 6 K. Two of the runs scored when Jamie Walker came in to relieve Burres and gave up a hit to Carl Crawford. Walker hasn't been his usual LOOGY self this year, with lefties hitting much better against him than righties.

Nick Markakis was back in the line-up, but took an 0-4. All of the O's runs came on one swing of the bat by Adam Jones. He took Matt Garza deep for a two run homer, but that's all they would get and Garza picked up his first win of the season with the 4-2 Rays victory. That moves the Rays into sole possession of second place in the East, but the O's are still above .500.

The team is going back west, for three against the Angels and another three against the A's. Then it'll be four versus the Royals (I'm excited to see Zach Greinke and Brian Bannister pitch - hopefully well, but just not quite well enough) before they come back to the Yard to face the Boston Red Sox (Boo!). Maybe if the team is still winning, there will actually be more O's fans than Red Sox fans there.

In other news, nobody wanted Greg Aquino (he passed through waivers - surprising, since a few teams could really use bullpen help) and he was sent to the minors. He may be back up soon though, as Randor Bierd was placed on the DL with "right shoulder discomfort". That's upsetting - apart from him pitching pretty well, I also greatly enjoyed cheering for RAN-DOR. It really is a great name. He'll be out over a month, so I hope it's not too serious.