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Yankees-Orioles Preview

Jun 9, 2010 - 4:54 AM By MIKE LIPKA STATS Writer

New York (35-22) at Baltimore (16-41), 7:05 p.m. EDT

CC Sabathia finished May with a troubling stretch of five straight starts without a victory. Facing the Baltimore Orioles to begin June turned out to be just the fix.

Each of Sabathia's last three victories have come at the expense of the lowly Orioles, who've lost nine straight to the Yankees and seven in a row to New York's ace entering Wednesday night's game at Camden Yards.

Sabathia improved to 4-1 with a 2.74 ERA after beating the Orioles on April 28 and May 3, but the big left-hander allowed seven home runs in 28 2-3 innings over his next five starts, going 0-2 with a 6.28 ERA in that stretch.

He was much better in a 6-3 win over Baltimore on Thursday, giving up homers to Luke Scott and Adam Jones but limiting the Orioles to three hits in seven innings. Sabathia (5-3, 4.14 ERA) is 7-0 with a 2.05 ERA in his last seven starts against Baltimore and 12-1 in his career.

"I saw a lot of good things," Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland said. "He's very close. I'm not concerned really about anything with him."

There have rarely been big concerns for New York (36-22) against the Orioles lately. The Yankees went 13-5 against Baltimore in 2009, including a 10-game winning streak from May 10-Sept. 2.

Since losing the first game of this season's series 5-4 on April 27, New York has outscored the Orioles 57-22 while going 9-0. Curtis Granderson hit a grand slam and Nick Swisher added five RBIs in a 12-7 victory to open this three-game series Tuesday night.

Manager Joe Girardi may have been most excited about Mark Teixeira, who went 3 for 4 with two walks and a home run after entering the game hitting .211.

"It just looked like he was staying on the ball longer, like he was trying to use the middle of the field, and it resulted in him staying back and hitting the ball hard," Girardi said of his star first baseman, who grew up in the Baltimore area.

While the Yankees lead the majors with 326 runs, the Orioles (16-42) remain last in the AL in that category (193). Baltimore has the worst record in the majors and the team's worst record at this point in the season since 1988, when it opened 0-21 en route to a 54-107 finish.

They've dropped 11 of 12 overall, and they're 1-3 since firing manager Dave Trembley on Friday and replacing him with Juan Samuel. Baltimore's pitchers have allowed 34 runs in four games under Samuel, although the interim manager was pleased to see his club score four runs in the eighth and ninth inning Tuesday after falling behind 12-3.

"For me, the good sign is that we kept scoring because we could have easily folded," Samuel said. "We showed that we could come back, and that's something we know that this club can do. It's been positive for me so far."

Samuel turns to Chris Tillman (0-1, 7.71) in hopes of steadying Baltimore's beleaguered staff.

In his second start since being recalled from Triple-A Norfolk, Tillman certainly could not do that Friday night against Boston, allowing seven of the 11 batters he faced to reach base in an 11-0 loss.

"I felt like I didn't have a chance to get really anything going," Tillman told the Orioles' official website. "I fell behind in counts, had to go to the fastball and they were sitting on it. I think you can see what happened."