Huff photo © D. Heller

Photo © Rob Carr / AP

Not much in the way of a crowd tonight. Announced attendance, apparently, was about 10,500. We really are the Major League Indians.

But to quote another quality sports movie of the same era, the sun shines on a dog's ass some days, Billy Hoyle.

After what was a wonderfully laughable and cliché first inning from Daniel Cabrera -- out, single, steal, out, walk, home run, out -- the O's rebounded late to score a 9-6 win over the Rays, thanks to the heroics of the great and wonderful Aubrey Huff, everyone's favorite player.

Huff, who torched Tampa Bay last season, hit his first home run of the season in the sixth inning, chasing Matt Garza from the game and bringing the Orioles back into it, trailing just 6-5.

Prior to that, it had looked like all was lost. Brian Roberts led off the bottom of the first with a home run, but Cabrera was taken out in the fifth after failing to get a single out, striking out two and walking five, allowing six earned. He looked awful out there. Where are you, zknower? Defend your boy!

From there, Randor Bierd, Chad Bradford and Jamie Walker (who struck out the side in the eighth inning) held down the fort, and then, Huff struck again.

With two on, Huff drove one to the wall and cleared the bases, giving the O's a 7-6 lead. After the homer, he was still getting some boos -- by the way, if you were there and one of the people booing Huff for hitting a two-run homer, get over yourself. Seriously. After the game-changing double (Huff reached third on Nathan "Wille Mays" Haynes' error), it was all cheers for Aubrey.

If he wants to keep hitting like this, he can count me in as a fan, too.

Razor Ramon drove Aubrey in on a sac fly, and Adam Jones made it 9-6 with an RBI single that scored Jay Payton, who was running for Luke Scott and had stolen second base.

Quite a game for the revamped Rays bullpen, as last year's closer, Al Reyes, was shelled by the Birds to the tune of four earned in two-thirds of an inning, walking two and striking out none.

George Sherrill made the ninth inning interesting by pulling a John Parrish, throwing the ball with lots of movement all over the damn place, walking two and striking out two before getting pinch-hitting Jonny Gomes to pop out to center field, ending the game.

So we won't challenge the '88 team's 0-21 start.

Adam Jones, who is looking for a nickname, scored his first Oriole run, got his first Oriole hit, stole his first Oriole base, and notched his first Oriole steak. Even Luis Hernandez drew a walk and scored a run.

Cliff Floyd hit the first inning home run for the Rays.

It's the days like these, where Jones hits and the bullpen holds it down and looks good and other things actually go right, that will make the 2008 season worth watching. Sure, it's just one win, and we'll see more days like Monday than tonight, but whatever. All I ask is that the team plays its ass off.

Good win. Fun night, as even Gary and Jim seemed to be having a good, wisecrackin' time. .500.

Oh yeah, Pat Sajak was there too.

Matt Garza, RH (5-7, 3.69/1.54) v. Daniel Cabrera, RH (9-18, 5.55/1.54)

I have no problem saying that Garza was my favorite pitching prospect in all of baseball when he was with the Twins, and him being part of the Big Three in Tampa Bay scares the bejesus out of me. Those guys could dominate the division for a long, long time. And I think Garza has the goods to be THE ace of the bunch.

This is Cabrera's fifth full year as part of the Orioles rotation. He's just a total pain, and I expect nothing anymore. I don't expect him to ever be any good. Why bother? His only consistency is being a big letdown. If you want to be like our own Dr. Enloe and continue to go insane during every Cabrera start, be my guest.

How about an over/under on walks for Cabrera starts? We'll do five -- make it 5.5.

RAYS STARTING LINEUP

1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. Carl Crawford, LF
3. Carlos Pena, 1B
4. B.J. Upton, CF
5. Cliff Floyd, DH
6. Willie Aybar, 3B
7. Dioner Navarro, C
8. Nathan Haynes, RF
9. Jason Bartlett, SS
   

ORIOLES STARTING LINEUP

1. Brian Roberts, 2B
2. Melvin Mora, 3B
3. Nick Markakis, RF
4. Kevin Millar, 1B
5. Aubrey Huff, DH
6. Luke Scott, LF
7. Ramon Hernandez, C
8. Adam Jones, CF
9. Luis Hernandez, SS

FUN STATS

• Daniel Cabrera is 6-0, 3.04/1.38 in 11 career starts against the Rays.
• Aubrey Huff hit 15 home runs in 2007; seven of them came against Tampa Bay (.365/.429/.762).
• Carlos Pena hit .316/.446/.667 with six homers against the Birds in 2007.
• Veteran Rays reliever Troy Percival historically stinks against the O's: 5.86 ERA and 1.51 WHIP in 43 career innings against Baltimore.
  

Photo © Charles Krupa / AP

In preparation for the season-opening series against the newly-renamed Tampa Bay Rays, myself and R.J. Anderson of DRays Bay and Beyond the Boxscore exchanged five questions apiece. Here's some scoop on the Rays.

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1. You know what it's like to go through a true youth movement. We've lost plenty over the last ten years, but do you have any advice on what it's like to deal with talented young players on the Major League level? Because that's not exactly an Oriole trademark lately.

The key is the term "talented", the 2002 Rays were young, but that youth included Toby Hall, Brent Abernathy, Jared Sandberg, and Jason Tyner. I would simply advise to not expect too much. B.J. Upton had a rough stint in 2006 that had most writing him off, meanwhile everyone expected Delmon Young to win rookie of the year last season, Upton not only had the better season, he didn’t run himself out of town with his mouth. I can’t help but look at Adam Jones nad have a feeling that he’s going to sneak up on a ton of teams this year, I know he’s not technically a rookie, but if you’re going to put high expectations on a youngster he’s the one.
 
2. Seriously -- how exciting is having Kazmir, Shields and Garza fronting the rotation?
 
Very. Troy Percival seems to think so too, he even had a t-shirt made comparing the trio to the eerily similar Braves’ trio from the early 90’s; Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery.

3. There is a lot of talent in Tampa. How soon do you think the Rays can really become contenders in the AL East, given that most things break right with the players, and also assuming the Red Sox and Yankees keep on keepin' on?

Hopefully next year, but just because you’re a contender doesn’t mean you have a chance to win the division, as you guys know. In a way it’s easy to get down on the idea that even if everything goes our way – the rotation filling out and bubbling over to a dominant pen, the lineup being good like people think, ect. – it still might not be enough to win the division. Then you remember that Hank Steinbrenner won’t shut up and that this, after all, is baseball and you have to believe that before 2012 the Rays will have reached the playoffs. 
 
4. We all know the pitchers, Crawford and the finally-emerged Carlos Pena, but who's the most underrated Ray?

Akinori Iwamura. Some Rays fans have ran their mouths saying he’s an average player from being benched, frankly they don’t know what they’re talking about. His transition from third to second has been seemingly flawless, and while he’s not a huge power hitter, his approach to hitting is far better than people give him credit for. 
 
5. What's the general feeling on manager Joe Maddon? We never hear anything about this guy.

He’s polarizing, mainly because he’s quirky and he’s  managed the Rays to the worst record in each of his seasons at helm, but when we win – if we win perhaps – he’s going to be a blast. He’s a very intelligent guy, upon arrival an article was written about his fascination with Malcolm Gladwell’s great book Blink. He’s a fan of red wine, and to reference what I mean look up his quotes about "face", liking "we, not I", and about talking to Joe Girardi regarding the Elliot Johnson collision at the plate where he essentially takes a question and turns it into a conversation on what he likes including the line: "I like iTunes, I’ve downloaded some stuff off of there…"

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