Another Loss for The Orioles. Again. Matusz's Potentially Brilliant Start Spolied...

A 1-7 record now. Five straight losses. Every game was potentially winnable, for the most part.

Sigh.

Really, Opening Week has not been good to the Orioles. They been trashed on the radio, online and wherever else for the past few days, but on a cold Tuesday, they fought and fought.

The Orioles frankly aside from the pitching staff (sans Mike Gonzalez) have not been good. So, on Tuesday they decide to shake things up and wear not only their orange batting practice jerseys and their Friday night O’s cap.

More importantly, they had young Brian Matusz on the mound and on Tuesday he showed why he’s been so highly thought of throughout baseball.

What was a great game for fans – sadly – until the tenth inning thanks to a shaky bullpen became another script we’ve seen before as fans as the Orioles lost to the Rays, 8-6. Carlos Pena’s tenth inning three-run homer off Oriole reliever Matt Albers in the tenth.

Tampa reliever and former Oriole Lance Cormier earned the win. Rafael Soriano earned the save.

Matusz was cruising throughout the game and by the time the seventh inning ended, he was in line for a special night.

Watching the game, I thought, maybe it would be a nice time for Matusz to leave the game in the seventh – you know, have him go out on a high at home.

The crowd was into it, Matusz was in control and the Orioles were heading for a win to end the four-game skid.

Then the Orioles got bit in a game. Again. Eh, then the eighth inning came and things changed quickly – very, very quickly.

Matusz perhaps tired and fell out his groove. The hits came for Tampa and one run in the start of the frame became five. All the runs were scored on three singles from Sean Rodriguez , Evan Longoria (2 runs), Carlos Pena and a double from B.J. Upton. The Oriole bullpen didn’t do its job and bail Matusz out.

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