RUN

QUARTERBACK -- Kyle Boller had a couple of bad throws but was accurate most when he had time to throw. Backup Troy Smith showed poise late in the game but the best quarterback in Miami yesterday was Bob Griese. B Offensive line The Ravens gave up four sacks, and defensive end Jason Taylor took advantage of tackle Marshal Yanda's inexperience. The Ravens were dominant running the ball, but their pass blocking was poor. C- Receivers Devard Darling came up big a couple of times, but he has to hold on to the ball.

CHICAGO // His performance had been mostly overshadowed by the emergence of Jeremy Guthrie, but as far as pleasant surprises are concerned, Brian Burres takes a back seat to no one on the Orioles' roster. Without a top prospect's pedigree and a power pitching arm, two things Guthrie boasts, Burres succeeded when injuries gave him an opportunity to prove himself in the Orioles' rotation. But in Burres? last start of the first half, his feel-good story came to a crashing halt. Given an opportunity to secure a rare road series victory and continue the momentum heading into the All-Star break, Burres never gave the Orioles a chance.

Well-armed Starting at catcher in place of Ramon Hernandez yesterday, Paul Bako threw out two runners attempting to steal while Adam Loewen was on the mound in the Orioles' 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter, Fla. Bako cut down Aaron Miles after Scott Spiezio struck out to complete the double play and end the third inning, and he threw out So Taguchi after a one-out single in the fifth. Bako also had two hits, including a run-scoring single in the sixth inning. Mind cramp The Orioles maintained a 2-1 lead after six innings because of a base-running blunder by Scott Rolen.

As much as their 27-run loss to the Texas Rangers a day earlier was discussed on national television, making the Orioles the butt of scores of jokes for at least one day, the players insisted that they would easily forget about the historic defeat. However, their latest defeat, a 5-2 setback to the Minnesota Twins last night before an announced 19,389 at Camden Yards, might have stung them more, simply because it was a game the Orioles felt they gave away. "I'm not so sure if they won or we lost, if you understand what I'm saying," said Orioles manager Dave Trembley, whose team has lost three straight and is 10 games under .500 for the first time since July 22. "You give them credit.

A dry mouth, creaky knees and muscle soreness that lasts for three days. These are signs the body wasn't meant to run a marathon, said Dr. John Senatore, chief of podiatry and a sports medicine physician at Union Memorial Hospital. That may be affirmation for couch potatoes, but the number of marathons and the number of people willing to run 26.2 miles keep growing. About 410,000 people finished one of about 300 U.S. marathons last year, up from 25,000 three decades earlier, according to Running USA, a group that promotes fitness and tracks trends.

For much of the past week and a half, the Orioles have done nearly everything right. But in a frantic ninth inning last night at Camden Yards, when it again looked like the home team would find a way to win, everything went horribly wrong. Corey Patterson, the Orioles' fastest runner, couldn't score the tying run from second base on a single. Melvin Mora, one of the team's best bunters, opted to lay one down on his own, but it wasn't good enough to bring Patterson home. And Miguel Tejada, the Orioles' best hitter, made the game's final out after the batter in front of him was walked intentionally.

Even if it lacked playoff bite, last night's game against the Texas Rangers was supposed to carry playoff implications for the Orioles. Win and the possibility of a two-month wild-card run grows. Lose and the reality created by a disastrous April becomes harder to escape.The Orioles sent their Mr. October, Mike Mussina, to the mound. They scored first when Albert Belle crushed his fourth home run in five at-bats and seventh in 10 games to provide an early lead. But the Rangers, the only major-league team hotter than the Orioles, are a playoff lock.

Hitless in three at-bats, Bryn Mawr center fielder Sarah Cook said she went to the plate in the seventh inning of yesterday's Association of Independent Schools A Division championship game hoping for a single.Instead, she all but ended Lutheran's title hopes.The senior turned Kelley Null's low pitch into a three-run home run over the center-field fence and put an exclamation mark on the Mawrtians' 9-3 win over the previously unbeaten Saints."I had gotten out every time, so I just went up thinking that I wanted a single to end the season," said Cook, whose homer at McDonogh was her first this season.

Once in a while, if you look hard enough, you can see why the Orioles were considered a legitimate playoff contender at the start of this disappointing season.Take, for instance, last night's 8-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins, which featured every aspect of championship-caliber baseball, including Mike Mussina's 15th victory and a historic two-pitch appearance by venerable reliever Jesse Orosco -- who became the major leagues' all-time leader in pitching appearances in the seventh inning.

The Orioles Run Pump -- which displays the running total of each Orioles rally on the JumboTron scoreboard at Camden Yards -- nearly blew a gasket in the first inning last night, and a week's worth of frustration poured out on the Texas Rangers.Cal Ripken had a two-run double, Mike Bordick had a three-run double and B. J. Surhoff hit his seventh home run of the season, all before the Orioles' lineup had recorded three outs in last night's 15-6 victory over the top team in the American League West.

After a slow start on offense in Saturday's Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference football championship, Archbishop Spalding wanted a big second-half play to break through against Boys' Latin. The No. 14 Cavaliers got a handful of them. Among the highlights - Ryan Cochrane's 61-yard run that set up a touchdown by Scott Sharik and Zach Waller's 38-yard touchdown run off a fumble recovery. Those and several more big defensive plays fueled a 12-0 victory that avenged their only regular-season loss and spoiled the No. 8 Lakers' bid for a perfect record before a standing-room-only crowd at Mount St. Joseph.

Nathan Ayers stood near midfield, flanked by coaches wrapping his bloodied left thumb, and confidently served notice to the rest of the local football world that No. 9 Dunbar isn't satisfied with three straight state titles. "We're not going to let anybody take this from us," the senior running back said. "I won't be stopped." On Saturday, Forestville found out first hand. Ayers rushed 23 times for a career-high 340 yards, scoring four touchdowns and three two-point conversions to lead the Poets out of an early hole to a 34-25 win in a Class 1A South semifinal at Poly.

Poly quarterback Antoine Goodson didn't complete a pass all evening in the Engineers' 46-20 win over Edmondson at Mervo last night. He didn't have to. The senior, returning for his first game after a dislocated shoulder, directed a run-only offense and scored four touchdowns while rushing for 155 yards on 16 carries in the victory. No. 10 Poly (6-0, 5-0) gained 542 rushing yards behind the offensive line of Keon Brunson, John Ward, Gregory Nixon, Reno Coles and Kennard Brown. Because the holes were there, Goodson never had to throw a pass.

Throughout most of Friday night's game, Poly quarterback Antoine Goodson and running back Gabriel Ali-El provided most of the offense, but when both got hurt and left the game in the third quarter, the No. 14 Engineers held on to beat No. 11 Patterson, 38-18, in a Baltimore City Division I game. Goodson ran for 153 yards on 17 carries and scored two touchdowns before he left the game with a shoulder injury early in the quarter. Shortly thereafter, Ali-El, who ran for 131 yards and one touchdown on 15 carries, went to the hospital to be checked out for a possible concussion.

There was little doubt among the players for Archbishop Spalding and host Cardinal Gibbons that Friday night's crucial Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference game would come down to one big play. With 8:47 left in the game, the Cavaliers faked a punt and kicker Wade Korvin found Chad Wilkerson for a 37-yard gain. Two plays later, Shelley White ran 6 yards for a touchdown, which helped Spalding walk away with a 27-24 victory. "The first thing I did when I got out there was look over and see that Chad was wide open," Korvin said.

MINNEAPOLIS - - Even in their losses recently, and there have been plenty of them, the Orioles have played pretty good baseball. But in Tuesday night's deflating 7-6 defeat to the Minnesota Twins before an announced 23,690 at the Metrodome, they did just enough to make sure that they wound up with the loss. The Twins scored three times in the sixth inning to tie the game and then won it in the ninth on Delmon Young's RBI single to right field off Kam Mickolio, his fourth hit of the night.

ANAHEIM, Calif -. - If nothing else over the past two days at sun-drenched Angel Stadium, the Orioles succeeded in putting on clinics on how to blow four-run leads in the middle innings. On Saturday, it was two defensive miscues, coupled with an all-around implosion by a tiring bullpen that resulted in a disheartening defeat. In Sunday's 9-6 loss in front of an announced 35,912, Orioles pitchers lost touch with the strike zone at the most inopportune times as a chance to secure a four-game series split went by the wayside.

Toronto -Roy Halladay is a five-time All-Star, a one-time Cy Young Award recipient and a two-time 20-game winner, honors that a pitcher obviously doesn't earn from just dominating one team. But make no mistake, when it comes to being controlled by the Toronto Blue Jays' ace right-hander, the Orioles are in exclusive company. Halladay looked very ordinary against the Orioles for about the length of time it took Nick Markakis' two-run homer in the first inning to reach the right-field seats.

There are certain responsibilities that come with being a staff ace, and Jeremy Guthrie, though still relatively new to the role, has not shied away from any of them. He would be the first to acknowledge that when given a multi-run lead early in the game, he's expected to put up zeros and preserve it. However, it's a task the right-hander is struggling with. Ten days after letting a seven-run lead over the Boston Red Sox slip away, Guthrie contributed to a four-run advantage over the Texas Rangers going to waste Monday night.

ARLINGTON, Texas - When the top of the fourth inning finally ended on Monday and the Orioles' offense had flexed its muscles one more time in this young season, Koji Uehara jogged out to the mound and offered congratulatory fist bumps to Ty Wigginton and Aubrey Huff. There was no need for a translator. The appreciation and admiration shown by the Japanese pitcher was obvious. On a night when Uehara had all sorts of problems with the Texas Rangers' lineup, the offense the pitcher previously described as reliable and the back end of the bullpen bailed him out. The Orioles, wearing "Baltimore" across their road jerseys for the first time since the 1972 season, saw their six-run, sixth-inning lead whittled to just a run by the end of the seventh.