Game 2: Athletics 9, Orioles 0

So Newton (I remember now...3rd law, I got it) talked about how every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. Well, after the O's shutout win over the A's, the A's got to produce a shutout win of their own.

In many ways, this is the O's team everyone expected to see with the exception of the absent offense. You would think with emergency starter Kirk Saarloos going for the A's, the O's would have a field day. Instead, they only got a hit off him in addition to a hit off that time bomb waiting to explode Ricardo Rincon and another off newbie Huston Street. Hey, I was just on Huston Street the other day, but that's another story.

You could tell that it would be a frustrating night for pitcher Daniel Cabrera. Just like Rodrigo Lopez before him, his first batter, Mark Kotsay, fouled off pitch after pitch. After a little talking to from Tejada, Lopez recovered and pitched a masterful game. Tejada also talked to Cabrera and he recovered but pitched an awful second inning. It was pretty surprising Mazzilli left him in til the 4th.

Before Cabrera gave way to the bullpen, commentator Rick Sutcliffe (that was him right?) was saying if the starters can give some good innings, the bullpen will take care of business. Okay, so the starter only gave 3 1/3. Would the bullpen hold up? Absolutely not. The only bright spot was Todd Williams, who was pretty much perfect in the spring and tonite pitched a perfect 8th inning. Parrish was okay but did allow some walks.

And whoa, what was with the attendance? 22,000 it says in the box score. You can bet Angelos will try to squeeze a little more money out of the Nationals now.

I won't be commenting on the O's every game, but this is a special case since they're facing the A's, the favorite team of a few of my friends. So to them, pile it on tonight and we'll see what happens in the rubber game tomorrow.