Pitcher

Tommy Byrne, a Baltimore-born southpaw who pitched in four World Series as a member of the New York Yankees, died of congestive heart failure Thursday in Wake Forest, N.C. He was 87. A 1979 inductee into the Maryland Sports Hall of Fame, Mr. Byrne was a star athlete at City College from 1935 to 1937 - leading the school to state baseball championships in his last two years. As a major leaguer, he was an All-Star whose reputation for wildness on the mound led to several years of exile from Yankee Stadium and had hitters ducking for most of his career.

FORT MYERS, FLA. -- While the agent for Kris Benson worked yesterday to complete plans for his client's season-ending surgery to repair a partially torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder, the Orioles moved on, not expecting to have the services of the pitcher in the first place. "We were a little bit optimistic about it just because the feeling was that he didn't do an awful lot at the end of the season until January," said Orioles vice president Jim Duquette. "But still, we had medical opinions that made you wonder what you were up against.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- For the first 15 innings of this series, Orioles pitchers had flirted with danger. They put runners on but saw them erased with key double plays. They moved one pitch away from giving up the lead but instead got a clutch strikeout and kept it intact. However, in the seventh inning last night, with their seventh straight victory in their sights, the luck of the Orioles and their starting pitcher, Daniel Cabrera, ran out. Gary Matthews Jr. laced a go-ahead, two-run, two-out single with the bases loaded, sending the Los Angeles Angels to a 3-2 victory over the Orioles in front of an announced 43,012.

What if comedian Bob Newhart were the bullpen coach who answered the telephone when Orioles manager Dave Trembley called for help Tuesday night? "RRRRIIINNNGGG: Hello, Orioles bullpen, it's your dime. Oh, hi, Dave, how are you? Oh, not so good, huh. Sorry to hear that Dave. ... Yeah, we can hear the booing out here, too. Well, you know what I say - just as long as they stay in the stands (chuckle). ... No, I guess it's not so funny. ... So, what can we do you for you, Dave? ... You need a pitcher?

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Running out of ways to describe the recent dominance by teammate Erik Bedard, Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons went unconventional. "He's been Hershiser-esque, really," Gibbons said. Gibbons was making a comparison to former Los Angeles Dodgers' ace Orel Hershiser, who once pitched 59 consecutive scoreless innings. Bedard's streak never got remotely close to Hershiser's, ending at 21 innings when Mark Ellis hit a bases-empty homer with two outs in the sixth inning of the Orioles' 6-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Friday night.

In the two years since Eastern Tech won the Class 2A state baseball championship, Ryan Rivers' baby face doesn't appear to be any closer to having a razor take any hair off it now than then. But there's a lot of maturity in Rivers' game, and his breadth of experience may go a long way toward helping the Mavericks win a second title in three years when they face Middletown tomorrow afternoon at Ripken Stadium. The fact that you can now call Rivers a pitcher rather than a thrower is a reflection of how far he has come as a player and a person.

DEAR CAL -- My son pitches for his 15-and-under travel team. Recently he pitched a complete game and was having some discomfort in his shoulder the next day when the team was playing another game. Other pitchers were having trouble getting the ball over the plate, and the coach asked my son if he could pitch. My son said his arm hurt and he didn't want to throw. After the game, the coach came up to me and said he was disappointed that the kid didn't suck it up and pitch. I didn't quite know how to respond.

Player of the Year Ben Winter Centennial After Centennial graduated last season's Player of the Year, pitcher-shortstop Scott Swinson, Winter stepped right in. The junior pitcher-outfielder led the Eagles (20-5) to the Class 3A state final and helped them repeat as Howard County champions. The left-hander went 7-1 with a 1.33 ERA. His only loss came in the 3A final to Westminster, 4-1. That followed a two-hitter with nine strikeouts in a 7-2 win over Howard in the county championship game.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- The sound of a bullpen phone ringing. That's all it took for pitcher Rob Bell's heart to pound, his palms to sweat, his body to shake. One call from his team's dugout, and his baseball life felt as if it were ripping apart at the seams. Bell's only victory in 2005, at least the kind that appears in a box score, came against the Orioles, the team that signed him to a minor league contract in November, invited him to spring training and has given him a chance to make the club as a long reliever.

Fort Myers, Fla. -- The curiosity was mutual. Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka said before yesterday's game that he was looking forward to his start against the Orioles to see how he would do against Miguel Tejada, Melvin Mora and the other veteran hitters in the Baltimore lineup. The Orioles brought six regulars to City of Palms Park to see the pitcher who sparked an international bidding war and cost the Red Sox a total of $103 million in negotiating fees and guaranteed salary. Fans of the counterintuitive will be happy to know it was Matsuzaka who came away the more impressed after giving up two home runs in his first preseason defeat, though nobody in the Orioles' clubhouse had anything but praise for the young pitcher who already has led Boston and its South Florida spring training suburb to go Dice-K crazy.

Saying it's time to move on, Orioles amateur scouting director Joe Jordan withdrew his offer for second-round draft pick Mychal Givens and turned his attention to signing several of the team's other draft picks. Givens, a shortstop out of H.B. Plant High in Tampa, Fla., was the 54th overall pick. Barring a sudden change before Monday's deadline to sign draft picks, Givens will accept a full scholarship to Oklahoma State and the Orioles will receive the sixth pick in 2010's second round as compensation for not signing him. "We just have too much ground to cover," Jordan said.

If you're an Orioles fan who has stood fast with Andy MacPhail's rebuilding program for the past 26 months, it's OK to be a little scared right now. It's all right to wonder whether all the dominoes are going to fall in the right direction. I'm wondering that. You're wondering that. Trust me, MacPhail is wondering right along with us. Rebuilding, as you've seen over the past few months, is not a perfect science. It's mostly about good long-range planning and development, but it's also part crapshoot and - yes - even a little bit of blind faith.

PITCHERS Matt Albers, B- Solid middle guy has been up and down twice this year but gets extra credit for pitching through a torn labrum. Danys Baez, B Has lost some momentum of late but has pitched well for a guy who looked like the odd man out in spring training. Brian Bass, B- Got off to a rocky start but has bounced back to secure his place among the top 10 all-time major leaguers named after fish. Brad Bergesen, A Quite simply, the most consistent and productive starting pitcher in the rotation.

N ews item: The Ravens are installing natural sod at M&T Bank Stadium for the big July 24 soccer game between AC Milan and Chelsea. My take: Natural grass in an NFL stadium? Why don't we just join the European Union and get it over with? Related news item: The euro, based on Thursday's exchange rate, is worth $1.39 (U.S.). My take: That means you would be able to get a 24-ounce beer at M&T Bank Stadium for just five euros. Sweet! Bonus take: Of course, with the value-added tax, it'll end up being the equivalent of $10 (U.S.

While on a pitcher's mound, Jake Arrieta doesn't mind if he's perceived as cocky. Honestly, he kind of likes it. "It doesn't bother me at all," said Arrieta, one of the Orioles' top pitching prospects who was recently promoted to Triple-A Norfolk after dominating at Double-A Bowie. "Off the field, I don't have a big mouth, or say this or that or talk about how good I am. ... If people think I am a [jerk] on the mound, that's fine with me." Case in point: Arrieta tells a story about a game last year in which he pitched for the Frederick Keys against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans.

He's a hit, too Rich Hill put the Orioles into an early hole by surrendering two runs in the first. However, the pitcher helped the team dig out of it. After Matt Wieters tied the game with a two-run double in the second inning, Hill drove in his catcher with a single to left-center field. The RBI gave the visitors a 3-2 lead and was the first by an Orioles pitcher since Garrett Olson had one June 28 of last season against the Washington Nationals. Jones, Roberts in funk The Orioles' teamwide offensive slump is pretty much over, but several of their top hitters continue to have their problems.

BOWIE -- The successful Double-A debut of pitcher Brian Matusz, the Orioles' first selection in the 2008 draft, coincided Wednesday night with the giveaway of 1,000 palm-sized Matt Wieters action figures at Prince George's Stadium. The timing was happenstance. The organization said it wouldn't want to place undue pressure on Matusz by likening the cherubic-faced left-handed starter's development to that of Wieters, the fifth overall pick in 2007 who hit .345 here last season and arrived in Baltimore on May 29 from Triple-A Norfolk.

Orioles rookie right-hander Brad Bergesen has gone from Opening Day starter at Triple-A Norfolk to the big league rotation's most consistent starting pitcher in two months. "I said in spring training, I thought he could have made the club. Probably was one of our better pitchers in the spring," Orioles manager Dave Trembley said. "We felt he had to go down and work on his changeup, work on his breaking ball a little bit and work on a little bit better pitch selection against left-handed hitters.

Hope you enjoyed watching Randy Johnson celebrate his 300th victory Thursday evening at Nationals Park, because you probably aren't going to see a major league pitcher do that again. I know, I know, you should never say never, especially if you're a fan of the Sean Connery James Bond movies. But there has been such a dramatic - and seemingly irreversible - generational change in the way pitchers are both developed and managed that nobody is likely to stick around long enough to become the 25th pitcher to reach that venerated milestone.

WASHINGTON - -The 6-foot-10 lefty with perhaps the most menacing sneer and imposing mound presence in baseball history had to take a few exaggerated breaths to keep from breaking down Thursday night. Sitting before reporters at Nationals Park after becoming the 24th member of major league baseball's 300-win club, San Francisco left-hander Randy Johnson's face reddened as he struggled to explain what he was feeling after the Giants' 5-1 win over the Washington Nationals. "This is kind of a long-term thing that has been going on for 21 years, and you finally get to this day," said Johnson, who at age 45 is the second-oldest pitcher to reach the milestone.