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Orioles walk-off with a win

Jun 27, 2007 - 3:48 AM BALTIMORE (Ticker) -- Ramon Hernandez drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth inning to hand the Baltimore Orioles a 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees on Tuesday.

A pitchers' duel went the way of the Orioles when Scott Proctor (1-5) walked three batters and allowed a single in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Corey Patterson began the rally with a walk and moved to second on Brian Roberts' single before Proctor loaded the bases with another walk, this time to Nick Markakis.

"We walked ourselves right out of this game," New York manager Joe Torre said. "You certainly can't expect good things to happen if you don't do the right thing out there."

Proctor was making his 39th appearance of the season - second most in the American League behind Baltimore's Chad Bradford. The righthander has now issued 22 walks in 42 innings this season.

"The first guy is everything," Proctor said. "Especially when you walk them. ... You can't do that, you've got to make him hit his way on."

"It's real tough right now," Proctor said. "The way we're playing, every game's huge. I let everybody down. I'm just (mad) at myself. You can't (expletive) walk people. It's embarrassing."

Baltimore jumped out on top in the third when Patterson led off with a single and stole second. Andy Pettitte then walked Roberts before Chris Gomez sacrificed both runners over.

Patterson came in to score one batter later when Markakis grounded out to second. Pettitte escaped further damage in the frame by forcing Hernandez to ground out to third to end the inning.

"(Patterson) was our secret weapon tonight," Baltimore interim manager Dave Trembley said. "Look at the chance we had out of the 3-4-5 spot, those guys had opportunities to come up because of what Corey did at the bottom of the lineup. He played a very good game and a very good game defensively."

The Orioles took a 2-0 lead in the following frame when Melvin Mora drew a one-out walk and moved to second on Kevin Millar's single that was misplayed by Yankees' center fielder Melky Cabrera. After Jay Payton popped out to second, Patterson hit a two-out RBI single.

New York evened the score two innings later when Johnny Damon followed Miguel Cairo's single with a two-run homer off Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie just over the wall in right field.

"Johnny got my slider and put a a real good swing on it," Guthrie said. "It just wasn't a great pitch and they did the damage they needed to with that. They put some real nice at bats together in the sixth inning and I was just fortunate to get out of it with the strikeout."

Guthrie lasted 6 1/3 innings, allowing two runs and seven hits while striking out six and issuing one walk. The 28-year-old rookie was forced to settle for a no decision - his seventh in 10 starts.

Tuesday marked just the fourth time in 10 starts that Guthrie has allowed more than one earned run. He has yet to allow more than three.

Lefthander Jamie Walker came on in relief with a runner on first and allowed a long single into the gap in left-center field to Bobby Abreu before forcing Miguel Cairo to pop out to center field and retiring Damon on a grounder to second base.

Pettitte lasted seven innings, surrendering two runs and eight hits while walking five and striking out two.

"I thought he was pretty good," Patterson said after tallying three hits off of Pettitte. "He was working both sides of the plate, in and out."

The veteran lefthander settled for a no decision - the ninth time this season he has yielded two earned runs or less and not notched a win.