Huff

Hammerin' Huff Aubrey Huff put a mediocre spring behind him with a long three-run homer in the third inning. Huff, the team's leading slugger last season, was hitting .214 with a .321 slugging average for the spring. His home run off Nationals starter Shairon Martis ricocheted off the second deck in right field. on deck The Orioles will work out at Camden Yards on Sunday afternoon and open the regular season Monday at 4:05 p.m. against the New York Yankees. Jeremy Guthrie will start for the Orioles against the Yankees' new ace, CC Sabathia.

For Aubrey Huff, it has been a way of life. In three of his first seven seasons, Huff was on Tampa Bay Devil Rays teams that finished with the worst record in the major leagues. "I don't know any better," said Huff, the Orioles' designated hitter. "I've been in last place pretty much my whole life." For the Orioles, it remains relatively unfamiliar terrain. While their stretch of futility extended to 10 straight losing seasons this year, they've been able to accomplish one thing during that span: avoiding the ultimate indignity of finishing with the worst record in the major leagues.

It's no wonder Brian Roberts stays in such excellent shape. The man orders a fruit platter for lunch while sitting by the hotel pool. No sloppy burgers and fries for the leadoff hitter. I tried to follow his example, but the chocolate syrup probably defeated the purpose. Carlos Pena has hit the C ring catwalk at Tropicana Field five times this season - a sentence I never thought I'd be typing. That's a single-season Devil Rays record, but I'm assuming the folks who run the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown aren't asking for his bat. Pena said he talked to the ball Monday last night as it headed toward the right-field seats, telling it to "hit something."

Late-inning relief falters Rob Bell entered in the second inning for Steve Trachsel and pitched 4 1/3 innings of one-hit baseball, but his bullpen mates failed to follow his lead. Scott Williamson entered in the seventh inning and allowed a bases-empty home run to Orlando Cabrera, and Chad Bradford gave up a two-out RBI single to Chone Figgins in the top of the eighth to tie the game at 7. With Chris Ray on in the ninth, Howie Kendrick hit a 420-foot, two-run shot into the Orioles bullpen, giving the Angels a 9-7 lead.

TWO-OUT WALKS Brian Burres, who had pitched with runners on base for most of the first five innings, appeared to be on his way to an easy sixth after he induced Adrian Beltre to hit into a double play. But Burres walked Richie Sexson, who entered the night hitting .201. Kenji Johjima then singled. Yuniesky Betancourt broke a 2-2 tie with a high drive that bounced off the top of the left-field wall for a two-run double. Burres was done after six innings, having allowed four earned runs on nine hits and two walks.

Huff homer? With two on and two out in the first inning, Aubrey Huff drilled a ball to deep right-center field that bounced high into the air after appearing to hit the top of the wall, but video replays were inconclusive. It was initially ruled a three-run homer, which would have been Huff's first this season, but the umpires changed the call, making it a two-run ground-rule double. Huff, who entered the game batting .220, went 2-for-4 and scored a run. No doubter Nick Markakis hit his first career grand slam in the eighth inning on the 11th pitch of his at-bat against Royals reliever Todd Wellemeyer.

When Aubrey Huff passed his physical yesterday, finalized a three-year, $20 million deal and was introduced as the newest Oriole, it likely represented the last major move for the club in a busy offseason. The Orioles signed nine free agents, including two of their own, and made two trades. The bullpen was overhauled, the starting rotation received a new member and the lineup was bolstered by two veterans with solid track records. "It's one of those things where we don't know how good we are at this point," said Orioles executive vice president Mike Flanagan, who called Huff the type of hitter the club has been seeking all offseason.

Maybe this is the week that the Orioles avoid a controversy. I like the odds. You can be sure that the organization is livid over Aubrey Huff's appearance with Bubba The Love Sponge (I can't stop typing those words). I've talked to enough people about it. And it's not so much that he said "horses - -," though that didn't go over well, either. The main issue is the overall subject matter. Huff opened up a little too much about his favorite pastimes. He was extremely graphic and crude, and the Orioles found it extremely inappropriate, even if he was "acting."

WASHINGTON -- The bright stars have faded to a dirty beige. The broad stripes are covered with patches. And the dawn's early light would only damage the 185-year-old cotton-and-wool banner even more.But rest assured. As the nation's capital celebrates the Fourth of July, the 34-by-30-foot Star-Spangled Banner is still there, and crowds are flocking to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History to see it.What they encounter is sometimes surprising: a team of conservators, outfitted in the teal scrubs and white face masks of surgeons, working in a low-lighted, climate-controlled laboratory to preserve the flag that inspired our national anthem.

H. Graham Motion hadn't planned on being at Laurel Park at 10 p.m. on Saturday.But after Bursting Forth won the All Along Stakes earlier in the day at Colonial Downs, Motion, a Maryland trainer, had to see whether his filly would win the lucrative top prize of MATCH (Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships).The only way Bursting Forth could lose was if Buffalo Dan, a 7-year-old sprinter, won the Mario Beneito Memorial Handicap at Penn National. Motion stood in front of a TV and watched the late-night simulcast.

Brett Jacobson was sitting in the home clubhouse of the Single-A Lakeland (Fla.) Flying Tigers on Aug. 17, playing cards with teammates and getting ready for batting practice before a game against the Clearwater Threshers, when he was approached by Glenn Ezell, the Detroit Tigers' director of player development. "I thought I was in trouble for something. He didn't look too happy," Jacobson said. Ezell told the 22-year-old right-hander he had been traded to the Orioles for first baseman Aubrey Huff.

We're going to miss Aubrey Huff, and not just because of his entertaining antics on satellite radio or his groundbreaking discovery that offseason conditioning is seriously overrated. We're going to miss him because he is a proven run-producer who held down one of the corner infield positions on a team that doesn't have anybody ready to take his place at first base. Don't get me wrong. I'm not blasting the trade that sent Huff to the Detroit Tigers on Monday in exchange for Single-A relief pitcher Brett Jacobson.

There was a time earlier this season when the Orioles were content with offering would-be free agent Aubrey Huff arbitration and bringing him back for the 2010 season on a lucrative one-year deal. However, Huff's failure to come close to replicating his numbers from last year changed the organization's plan, and the first baseman was traded Monday to the Detroit Tigers for minor league reliever Brett Jacobson. Huff, who signed a three-year, $20 million deal with the Orioles in January 2007, was named the Most Valuable Oriole last season and won a Silver Slugger Award after hitting .304 with 32 home runs and 108 RBIs.

DETROIT - - For his first time as a baseball player, professional or otherwise, Adam Jones looked at the lineup card Tuesday and saw his name listed fourth. "I said: 'Oh, sweet. Hitting fourth for the first time,' " Jones said. Orioles manager Dave Trembley was hoping for a specific reaction. "When he came in today and he saw his name in the fourth spot, I [wanted] him to say, 'Darn, I know I can do this.' " Trembley said. "But I want him to know that I know that." Trembley said his main reason for the shake-up was to separate left-handed hitters Nick Markakis and Aubrey Huff against lefty Jarrod Washburn.

As the nonwaiver trade deadline approaches Friday, the Orioles are moving further away from making a noteworthy deal - unless it involves closer George Sherrill. The Orioles have other trade pieces available, but according to several baseball sources, there is little, if any, interest in the club's trio of high-salaried pending free agents: reliever Danys Baez, first baseman Aubrey Huff and third baseman Melvin Mora. That leaves Sherrill, the club's 2008 All-Star who has converted 20 of 23 save opportunities this season, as the primary target.

BOSTON - - When Orioles manager Dave Trembley decided to give slumping Aubrey Huff the day off in Sunday's series finale against the Boston Red Sox, he had a couple of options to fill Huff's cleanup spot. His decision to hit Nick Markakis there came down to one factor. "I went up to him today and said, 'I'm putting you in the four-slot because you're our best guy,' " Trembley said. "Look how he played." Hitting fourth for the first time this season and just the sixth time in his career, Markakis went 2-for-4 with a homer, double and three RBIs.

BOSTON - -The wait for Chris Tillman is all but over. Tillman, the 21-year-old right-hander who is the Orioles' top pitching prospect, will be called up to make his major league debut Wednesday against the Kansas City Royals at Camden Yards. Orioles manager Dave Trembley didn't officially announce Tillman as Wednesday's pitcher, but he said the club will call up somebody from the minors to make that start and who it is won't come as a surprise. It has been speculated for weeks that the major league debut of Tillman, who is 8-6 with a 2.70 ERA for Triple-A Norfolk, is imminent.

BOSTON - -In the continued search for a silver lining in what is shaping up to be another brutal second half, the Orioles can say that, at the very least, they're not being blown out. It's certainly no consolation for a team that has won just one of its seven games since the All-Star break with the latest narrow defeat coming on Friday in a 3-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox in front of an announced 38,058 at Fenway Park. It is, however, an early departure from past second halves when the Orioles have suffered one lopsided loss after another, one more humiliating than the next.

SEATTLE -- -After getting picked off at first base with men on first and third and one out in the Orioles' five-run ninth inning on Wednesday, first baseman Aubrey Huff would have liked nothing better than to jog of the field and disappear into the dugout, not drawing any more attention to himself than he already had. Instead, Huff, who slipped and fell while in the rundown, was forced to limp off the field, flanked by Orioles head athletic trainer Richie...

Throughout his minor and major league coaching career, Dave Trembley has been known as a stickler for the little things. He wants the game played right, and he knows his future as Orioles manager depends on this year's team taking a significant developmental step forward over the next three months. So it has to be frustrating for him to watch his club reduced to one of the worst base-running teams in baseball at this critical juncture in the organization's rebuilding process. He took the job intent on putting the "fun" back in fundamentals, and now a long series of fundamental lapses is threatening to be his undoing.