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MLB: ORIOLES: Orioles drop series finale to Braves

Mora blasts two-run dinger for 10th homer of the season

/noticias.info/ ATLANTA -- The Interleague bubble burst for the Orioles on Sunday, when they played their final game of the year against a National League opponent. Baltimore took an early lead, but spent the rest of the day trying to stay in the game. Atlanta prevailed for a 10-3 win, a result that evened the Orioles' season record (9-9) against NL teams.

Why is that noteworthy? Baltimore came into this season with the third-worst Interleague record of any Major League team, and the O's lost one of their best power hitters -- Javy Lopez -- whenever they played in an NL park. The Orioles have only posted a winning Interleague record twice, but they're not looking at a .500 record as any sign of progress.

"We're not glad. We just want to play baseball," said Miguel Tejada, Baltimore's shortstop. "Our team, we don't care who we play, National League [or] American League. Right now, we're going to go back to the American League and we're going to play our game."

The Orioles got off to a good start Sunday, taking a 2-0 lead when their No. 2 hitter, Melvin Mora, drilled a home run in the first inning. Atlanta starter Horacio Ramirez settled down, though, shutting down the O's from the third inning through the seventh. In that span, Baltimore (38-45) only pushed one ball out of the infield, and that was a single by Jeff Conine.

"We got off to a good start, that's for sure," said leadoff hitter Brian Roberts. "He seemed to settle down pretty well. I don't know how many ground balls we hit. It seemed like a zillion."

"He stuck with his fastball pretty good. He wasn't missing down and away," said Baltimore catcher Ramon Hernandez, speaking about Ramirez. "He was keeping the ball down and on the corners. He pitched very good. When he needed to make one pitch, he made it. When you face a guy like that, you have to tip your hat."

Kris Benson (9-6) started on short rest for the road team, and it was apparent early that he didn't have his best command. The right-hander worked five innings, allowing nine hits and six runs -- four earned. He gave up two solo homers -- one to Ryan Langerhans and one to Wilson Betemit -- but was also victimized by an unearned run in both the third and fourth innings.

Benson made one of those errors on a grounder back to the mound. The other error was charged to Tejada on a potential 3-6 double play. Benson couldn't rebound from either miscue and didn't make any excuses after the game.

"I don't think they'll be asking me to throw on three days' rest anymore," said Benson, who lives in Atlanta during the winter. "It was just a hot day out there. It was one of those games where I felt like I had better stuff than I did. I just got beat today."



The O's were all but forced to start Benson on short rest, thanks to a doubleheader last week. Manager Sam Perlozzo had to choose between Benson and Erik Bedard -- both of whom pitched last Wednesday -- or Bruce Chen, the long reliever who was forced from the rotation earlier this season. Perlozzo went with Benson, who had pitched on short rest once before.

"Physically, I felt fine," Benson said. "The sharpness of my pitches just wasn't there. It was kind of the same in Anaheim when I came back on three days. My fastball command wasn't there. From the way the schedule looks, I won't have to pitch on three days' rest any time soon. I got one more start to finish up on a good note, and I'll look forward to the second half."

"He usually keeps the ball down and hits the corners. Today, he was a little off," Hernandez said. "He used a lot of sliders [and] a lot of offspeed pitches trying to get guys out. He was getting behind a lot of guys and we didn't make a few plays. We made it a little hard for him. I think that was the big key: His fastball command was a little off today."

Ramirez (4-2) pitched eight impressive innings for the Braves (35-47), who have won just four of their last 17 games. Ramirez allowed a run in the eighth inning but stayed in to get the key outs, retiring Mora and Tejada with runners on second and third base. After that, Atlanta scored four more, paced by a three-run homer by Chipper Jones.

"It looked like we were going to start on a roll there. Give the guy credit," said Perlozzo, lamenting his team's performance against Ramirez. "He started going away a little bit more and kept hitting his spots. We had a chance there in the eighth to bring it close, and just couldn't do it. We made a couple defensive mistakes early that could've kept us in that ballgame, too. It would've been a better ballgame." notas_de_prensa_archivo