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| Payton's grand slam propels Orioles past Red Sox BALTIMORE 6, BOSTON 3 |
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BALTIMORE (Ticker) -- Jay Payton's bat helped the Baltimore Orioles continue their solid play. Payton belted a grand slam in the seventh inning Wednesday to help the Orioles rally for a 6-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Nick Markakis drove in a run and Daniel Cabrera pitched seven effective innings for Baltimore, which has won two straight games and five of its last six. "The best part of our club that I've seen after 40 games is the guys have fun playing, they're not intimidated," Orioles manager Dave Trembley said. "They really don't think that they should take a backseat. They think they can play with anybody and they have every reason to feel that." The win helped the home team take the two-game series from the Boston Red Sox and put them two games (21-19) over .500 after being four games under and nine back in the standings at this point last season. "When you beat good teams, it does a lot for your confidence," Payton said. "We feel like we can compete with anybody. We go out there like everybody else thinking we can win ballgame. Fortunately, we were able to come away with a couple of wins here." The Orioles trailed, 3-2, entering the bottom of the seventh before they went to work on Boston's bullpen. Lefthander Javier Lopez allowed a two-out hit to Freddie Bynum before being replaced by Craig Hansen (0-2). However, Hansen surrendered a hit to Guillermo Quiroz and a walk to Brian Roberts before bench coach Brad Mills, Boston's acting manager, replaced the righthander with southpaw Hideki Okajima. That set the stage for Payton, who drilled Okajima's second pitch into the seats in left to give the Orioles a 6-3 lead. "It was nice, I've been swinging the bat decent but haven't had a lot to show for it," Payton said of his blast. "It was nice to get a big one today." "We thought we were getting the matchups we wanted there, but Jay was able to hit the ball," Mills said. Payton's fourth career grand slam made a winner of Cabrera (4-1), who allowed three runs and 10 hits while striking out three to snap a personal seven-game losing streak against the Red Sox. "Danny battled but was more than a one-pitch guy today than he had been in his past starts," Trembley said. "I don't know if it's because he wanted to show them his fastball early. They were first-pitch swinging a lot so he was going right at them." Baltimore righthander Matt Albers pitched a perfect eighth inning before George Sherrill worked around a two-out hit to Jason Varitek in the ninth to collect his 15th save. The loss spoiled an excellent effort by Red Sox starter Jon Lester, who yielded two runs, five hits and two walks while striking out four in six innings. "I thought Jon did a real good job, especially early on," Mills said. "The real plus was the way he battled through (Baltimore's lineup) today." Varitek and Mike Lowell each hit solo homers for the Red Sox. |
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