Red Sox 2, Orioles 1
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- With owner Peter G. Angelos watching, Daniel Cabrera and the Baltimore Orioles struggled against the Boston Red Sox.
Cabrera pitched 4 1-3 innings of no-hit ball but had problems with overthrowing in a 2-1 loss to the Red Sox on Sunday.
"A little erratic in his command," said Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo. "What we want Daniel to do is continue to use the same effort when he's pitching, even when he's struggling a little bit -- not to sacrifice his stuff for just trying to get the ball over the plate. ... His command just wasn't there today."
Cabrera -- who had walked three in nine innings over three previous starts -- allowed five walks and struck out three in five innings, his longest outing of the spring. The only hits he surrendered were consecutive doubles by Joe McEwing and Albert Castillo that tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth.
Five Boston pitchers limited the Orioles to five hits, including an RBI single by Aubrey Huff.
Angelos, making his first appearance at the team's spring training complex in several years, was part of a crowd of 8,661, the biggest of the exhibition season at Fort Lauderdale Stadium and the third-largest in the Orioles' 12-year tenure there.
"That's a great sign for us, that he takes an interest for us," Perlozzo said. "I'd like to see him come around a little more often and meet some of the guys, but he's a busy man."
Boston got the tiebreaker on a sixth-inning unearned run off loser Todd Williams. Julian Tavarez pitched three scoreless innings of two-hit relief for the victory, and Mike Burns worked a perfect ninth for the save.
Right-hander Kason Gabbard went the first three innings for the Red Sox, giving up no runs on one hit and striking out two.
"It was a good day to pitch -- the wind's blowing in. If you throw strikes, you should be OK," Boston manager Terry Francona said. "But I didn't see them hit a lot of balls. As long as Gabby's throwing strikes -- the breaking ball's getting better, the changeup's getting better -- he's going to have a lot of success. If he's down in the strike zone, he's got three good pitches."
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
