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Cabrera sharp as Orioles crush Yankees

Aug 15, 2007 - 3:52 AM By Larry Fleisher PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BRONX, New York (Ticker) - Daniel Cabrera has tremendous potential and the stuff to dominate games. Anyone who has witnessed his last two starts at Yankee Stadium can attest to that fact.

Cabrera scattered two hits in 6 2/3 innings and Aubrey Huff drove in five runs as the Baltimore Orioles posted a 12-0 victory over the New York Yankees on Tuesday night.

The 6-7 Cabrera (9-12) owns a lifetime record of 40-43 but two of his finest performances have come at Yankee Stadium. The last time he pitched here was September 28, 2006, when he took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before Robinson Cano broke it up with a single.

"Maybe I'm lucky," Cabrera said of his last two outings here.

In that 2006 game, the righthander had to overcome three errors by his teammates and faced a team that was preparing for the postseason.

On Tuesday, he was up against a Yankees club (67-52) which now is one-half game behind the Seattle Mariners (66-50) for the American League wild card lead but also were mourning the death of former Hall of Fame shortstop Phil Rizzuto. The Mariners host the Minnesota Twins later Tuesday night.

"He had command of his fastball," Baltimore interim manager Dave Trembley said. "Then he expanded the zone with his breaking ball and then when you get ahead like we got ahead, that opens up the game and you know they're going to swing at some pitches out of the strike zone, which is not characteristic of the Yankees."

"My fastball was working really well tonight," Cabrera said. "And my breaking ball too."

The Yankees fell five games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox (72-47) in the AL East.

Cabrera worked around six walks and the only hits he allowed were a two-out single to Hideki Matsui in the fourth and a leadoff infield hit to Alex Rodriguez in the sixth. He also struck out five and threw 60 of 111 pitches for strikes.

"You've got to stay away from the big inning," Trembley said. "You can't let the walks allow them to have the big inning of their own. You've got to make big pitches and you can't let down and you've got to keep going.

"You've got to keep going at them because the lineup they have and the approach that they take, especially in this ballpark."

The only other suspense came after Yankees reliever Jim Brower plunked Miguel Tejada in the top of the sixth. Cabrera did not retaliate and improved to 3-4 lifetime against the Yankees.

By the time the Yankees got their first hit off Cabrera, he had a 6-0 lead to work with as Huff hit his third career grand slam.

"It's wonderful," Cabrera said. "Anytime you have a big lead you can get more confident."

The performances of Cabrera and Huff also enabled the Orioles to rebound from Monday's 7-6 loss. In the series opener, they blew an early 3-0 lead, scored two runs off Mariano Rivera in the top of the ninth and lost in the bottom of the ninth.

"Winning games here, it's always a tough place to play," Huff said. "We got on them early and that what's we got to do, keep adding runs against a team like that because as you know, they're hitting .300 as a team, probably all season, and they could always come back regardless of the score. So you just got to keep adding runs."

The Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the second on Jay Payton's RBI single. With one out in the third, Nick Markakis doubled, Tejada walked and Kevin Millar singled.

Four pitches later, Huff crushed a 2-1 offering from Yankees starter Jeff Karstens (0-3) into the upper deck in right field. It was his ninth home run and gave Baltimore a 5-0 advantage.

"That's probably one of the better balls I've hit this year," Huff said. "The thing with it is I've hit balls like that this year, and I've hooked them. So getting around on that ball, and it stayed pretty straight, so that's a good sign for a hitter when you're hitting balls right down the line, and they're staying pretty straight."

The Orioles beat the Yankees for the seventh time in 11 meetings and added two more runs on a pair of sacrifice flies. They tacked on four runs in the sixth on RBI singles by Markakis, Huff and Melvin Mora and a bases-loaded walk to Brian Roberts.

Baltimore set a season high in runs and pounded out 13 hits. The Orioles capped their big night when Millar hit a solo home run off Ron Villone in the seventh.

Karstens, who was starting in place of the suspended Roger Clemens, allowed five runs and five hits in three innings while walking four and striking out one.

"Anytime you put runners on base without them having to hit, you're asking for trouble," Karstens said.

Clemens was suspended five games for hitting Toronto's Alex Rios a week ago after Josh Towers plunked Rodriguez. He did not appeal the suspension and is slated to start Saturday afternoon against the Detroit Tigers.

The Yankees lost for just ninth time in 35 games since the All-Star break. They also equaled their largest margin of defeat and suffered their worst shutout loss since September 2, 2005 at Oakland.

"This ballclub, in fact most ballclubs, are going to beat your brains out if you set them up in counts like we did," New York manager Joe Torre said.