Never on a Sunday; Baltimore Falls Again

O's Loss Is 15th Straight on Day of Rest: Tigers 5, Orioles 1

BALTIMORE, July 20 -- As Detroit Tigers Manager Jim Leyland crept from the dugout in the ninth inning, a good number of fans at Camden Yards stood and cheered.

Perhaps they saluted Justin Verlander, who was exiting, because he's a star from the region who grew up in Manakin Sabot, Va. Or perhaps some Baltimore fans were just paying homage to his memorable performance Sunday afternoon.

By the time Verlander walked from the mound with two outs in the ninth, tipping his cap on his way off the field, he had mastered the Baltimore Orioles' lineup to lead the Tigers to a 5-1 win before 23,278.

Verlander blunted Baltimore's high after a weekend in which the Orioles (47-50) put together exciting back-to-back victories. Verlander yielded three hits, three walks and one run, striking out three over 8 2/3 innings.

Verlander dealt Baltimore its 15th consecutive defeat this year on Sundays and hushed the Orioles' lively bats -- they scored 11 runs Saturday, had nine hits Friday and 14 hits Thursday -- to cap this four-game series. The Orioles' loss, coupled with the Toronto Blue Jays' victory, drops them to last in the American League East.

Verlander (8-9) pitched in a steady rhythm -- he threw six innings in which he faced the minimum three hitters -- employing his tough-to-handle fastball and a diving curveball.

"He's got such a big differential between his off-speed pitches and his fastball," Orioles first baseman Aubrey Huff said. "It makes it really difficult to sit on his fastball. And then he throws an off-speed pitch, and it makes it tough to get to."

Verlander's counterpart, Baltimore left-hander Brian Burres, did not establish a similar tone because he could not spot his fastball. Burres (7-6) threw 109 pitches over 5 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on six hits with four walks and five strikeouts. Magglio Ordóñez (2 for 5) and Marcus Thames (2 for 4) each blasted home runs off Burres.

"I was having to really struggle through a lot of it, pitching behind guys," Burres said. "I threw a lot of pitches and they got to see a lot of pitches, and I think it kind of hurt me in the sixth inning."

While Detroit (49-49) capitalized on two two-run innings in the latter half of the afternoon, the Orioles worked themselves into and then out of only one legitimate scoring opportunity the entire afternoon. Their chance to crack Verlander came with one out in the second inning but it died because of -- what else? -- a base-running blunder.

Huff led off that inning with a walk. One out later, left fielder Luke Scott continued his sizzling second-half pace with an RBI double to the left field wall, advancing to third on the play. But then the Orioles' miserable base running cost them.

Scott broke for home when Jay Payton knocked a ground ball to Detroit shortstop Ramón Santiago. The situation looked bad from the beginning -- Scott found himself stalled between third and home -- but Tigers catcher Iván Rodríguez dropped the ball in the rundown. Scott, for some reason, remained in neutral instead of running back to third. He was soon tagged out, killing the Orioles' quality scoring opportunity.

"The momentum never really came on our side," Trembley said. "We had that one scoring opportunity when Huff scored all the way from first. A bad decision by Luke when he was in the rundown. It seemed to take a little air out of the balloon right there for us."

After that blip in the second, Verlander systematically mowed down the Orioles.

"He's been pitching great and today was just an extension of what he's been doing," Payton said. "He's got good stuff. When you've got that kind of stuff and you can hit your spots with it, it just makes it tough."