After their brutal extra-inning loss to the Red Sox on Wednesday, the Orioles flew out to the left coast to face another tough customer — the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Baltimore offense sputtered, and the pitching staff was victimized by Bobby Abreu — who had two home runs and 4 RBI’s — along with a huge fifth inning, and they lost to Los Angeles, 5-2
.
The Angels’ John Lackey (3-3) went eight innings for the victory, and Brian Fuentes got his 23rd save.
Jeremy Guthrie (6-8) took the loss on Thursday as he lasted seven innings and gave up five runs. He gave up a solo home run to Bobby Abreu in the fourth inning, but the Angels got to him in the fifth inning as he allowed Macier Izturis to reach base on a triple, then walked Mike Napoli, thereafter, Chone Figgins plated Izturis and Los Angeles took the lead, 2-1. Moments later, Abreu stepped up to the plate and took Guthrie deep again to give the Angels a 5-2 lead.
Guthrie was not terrible in his outing, but it took a few bad pitches and a big inning to put the nail in the coffin for Baltimore. However, his offense didn’t help him much out at all as they only mustered five hits, and the big three in the lineup — Brian Roberts, Adam Jones & Nick Markakis — went for 0-for-12.
Baltimore’s offense came via Matt Wieters RBI-single in the fifth inning to tie the game, and a Luke Scott solo homer — his 16th — in the seventh.
Finally, during the past few days, Orioles manager Dave Trembley has taken a lot of flack on sports talk radio for his decision to not have Brad Bergesen start the ninth inning in the loss to the Red Sox on Wednesday. Well, hindsight is 20/20. As much as I have come to appreciate Bergesen and wish he could gotten a complete game, Johnson and Sherrill were pretty good in relief in the past month before the implosion yesterday.
Could Brad have gone into the ninth inning, yes; however, I don’t begrudge Trembley at all for making the decision he did. Simply put, if our relievers had thrown strikes and Varitek didn’t get lucky with a favorable call, we would not be lamenting the result.
Stuff happens; it was just a horrible loss for Baltimore yesterday.
