CHICAGO - -For the past three months, Orioles players and coaches have lauded rookie right-hander Brad Bergesen for his brisk pace on the mound.
In the fateful fifth inning of Saturday's 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox, Bergesen's rapidity got the better of him, and he quickly allowed a shaky situation to mushroom.
By the time he walked off the mound, he had surrendered six straight hits and, essentially, had been tagged with his fourth loss of the season.
"He works very fast and there are times in the game where you want to slow the tempo of the game down," Orioles manager Dave Trembley said. "I think he'll learn from that."
Cruising into the fifth with a 1-0 lead, Bergesen had limited the potent White Sox lineup to three hits. Everything changed, however, when Alexei Ramirez hit a one-out grounder to short that Cesar Izturis fielded cleanly.
Izturis' hard throw bounced in and out of the glove of first baseman Ty Wigginton, who looked surprised to see the ball sitting on the ground.
"I've never done that before. It's a play that needs to be made," said Wigginton, the club's super-utility player who has started 16 times at first base this season. "It's, in my opinion, one more error than a first baseman should make all year."
Three pitches later, White Sox slugger Jermaine Dye crushed Bergesen's pitch into the left-field seats for his 21st homer of the season and a 2-1 White Sox lead.
The normally unflappable Bergesen shook his head and spun in disgust as soon as Dye's bat made contact with the ball.
"It was just one of those that as soon as it got about halfway there and he loaded up, you just knew he was going to put a great swing [on it]," Bergesen said. "And once he hit it, it was just a no-doubter. So I kicked the dirt and moved on from there."
He moved on, perhaps too quickly. Instead of taking a deep breath and collecting his composure, Bergesen kept firing. And the White Sox kept swinging.
On Bergesen's second pitch after Dye's homer, Jim Thome doubled - the sixth straight at-bat in which he reached base, dating to Friday's fifth inning. Bergesen then machine-gunned 10 more pitches, and the White Sox singled four times.
"There is a time to back off and a time to speed up," Trembley said. "Especially when you've got guys that are basically running from the on-deck circle to get in the batter's box."
Overall, Bergesen (6-4) gave up six hits on 15 pitches after Wigginton's error.
