Orioles Tie It in 9th, Win It in the Tenth

Orioles 6, White Sox 5

BALTIMORE, April 17 -- When he watched Brian Roberts cross the plate in the bottom of the ninth to cap his team's game-tying rally, Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones thought to himself, "Why not just win this thing?"

So in the 10th inning, with the winning run on second, Jones's eyes grew big when Chicago White Sox reliever Boone Logan let a slider hang over the fat part of the plate.

"Hell, yeah, it looked good," Jones said. "It was right up where I like it."

Jones's hit landed just inside the left field line, scoring Kevin Millar to beat the White Sox, 6-5, before 13,676 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Baltimore entered the eighth trailing by three but tied the game off closer Bobby Jenks before winning it in the 10th.

"You do what you've got to do in order to win the game, you do what you've got to do for your team, especially when you're the home team," Baltimore Orioles Manager Dave Trembley said. "And especially when the guys show that much resiliency and fight."

Back-to-back home runs by Chicago's Carlos Quentin and Joe Crede in the seventh knocked starter Jeremy Guthrie out of the game. And Quentin made the prospects of a rally appear more dim after hitting another solo homer, this time off reliever Dennis Sarfate in the eighth, to give Chicago a 5-2 lead.

But the Orioles persisted.

"A lot of little things helped us get into the position to where we could tie the ballgame, and then win the game," Trembley said.

Baltimore's late push started when the Orioles scored an unearned run in the eighth after Luke Scott doubled home Millar, who had reached on an error, to pull within two.

In the ninth, with Jenks on the mound, Orioles catcher Guillermo Quiroz beat out a slow roller to third with one out.

"Sometimes they say that catchers, we're the slowest guys on the team," Quiroz said. "But in situations like that you've just got to hustle, run hard through the base and hopefully you get that base hit, and it happened tonight."

Two batters later, Roberts doubled home Quiroz. Melvin Mora then worked the count full before poking a single to center, scoring Roberts and sending the game to extra innings. The Orioles' comeback snapped Jenks's 10-save streak that dated from last season.

"When we tied the game, we knew we were going to win," Trembley said. "That's just the feeling that was in that dugout."

Trembley, working with a short bench because he has elected to carry 13 pitchers, was out of position players by the ninth. After pinch hitting for shortstops Luis Hernández and Brandon Fahey, Trembley sent pitchers into the team's underground batting tunnel to take swings. The shortage of bodies also forced Trembley to move designated hitter Aubrey Huff to third while sliding Mora over to shortstop.

But Jones made sure that Trembley would be rewarded for pulling out the stops.

"You always think that you can make a comeback," Jones said. "It's a part of the game. Even if you're down you always think you can win."

The rally spoiled the night for White Sox starter Gavin Floyd, a first-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Phillies in 2001 and a onetime prep star at Baltimore's Mount St. Joseph High School.

He had spent his childhood watching games at Camden Yards and appeared to have no problems getting comfortable in his settings on Thursday, retiring the first 12 Orioles he faced in his first career start in his old haunts. Floyd finished with four strikeouts in six innings, but didn't factor into the decision.