Tartabull

Dwight Evans limped out of the Orioles' training room with ice packs on his back, thigh and Achilles' tendon. This happens when you're 39 and still playing baseball.Before the game, fully aware the club was scuffling for healthy players, Evans had said to manager John Oates, "Put me in there and see what we can do."What Evans did was cap one of the greatest comebacks in Orioles history. His solo home run in the seventh tied the score at 8 after the Orioles had stormed back from an 8-1 deficit.

Rick Krivda was originally scheduled to start last night's series opener against Chicago. But David Wells, knowing what was at stake, eagerly took the ball.Better a veteran should pitch the first game of such an important series, even on three days' rest. Better a veteran should fight through a rocky first inning to save the bullpen.Wells didn't just defeat the White Sox, 5-1 -- he put the Orioles in position to win again tonight at Camden Yards if Krivda gets in trouble and the bullpen is needed early.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- In the winter of their discontent, the California Angels squirm uncomfortably in their chairs, knowing that the truth is bearing down on them like a Roger Clemens fastball.Buck Rodgers, their new manager, talks enthusiastically about better execution on the field. That's nice, but what about the way they've executed away from the field?These guys have played the off-season as if it were one big bad-bounce grounder.They've bungled it. They've botched their master plan. They've booted their blueprint.

Wade Boggs showed yesterday that two days off were well-spent.Boggs, who skipped road games against the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, came back against the Blue Jays and went 2-for-3 in the Boston Red Sox's 9-5 loss to Toronto at Dunedin, Fla., improving his average from .136 to .200.Boggs singled his first two times up against Jimmy Key and said it was good to face a pitcher he knew well."These lefties from the National League, you don't know how they're throwing. And righties, too," he said.

Rick Sutcliffe had made few mistakes in the course of his recent five-game winning streak. Even his worst pitch, which turned into a grand slam by California Angels first baseman Lee Stevens, came during an 8-7 victory in Anaheim last week.Sutcliffe's month-long run of good pitching, and good luck, ran out last night in a 5-2 loss for the Orioles to the New York Yankees at Camden Yards. Three home runs, including booming back-to-back shots by Don Mattingly and Danny Tartabull in the eighth, took care of that.

With so much at stake, a playoff berth, the idea of the Orioles reverting back to their form of May and June seemed preposterous. Guys not running hard? Lack of intensity? Impossible.But for whatever reason, the Orioles played the first five innings of last night's game as if they were out of any race and merely finishing out their schedule, and the lethargy cost them. The White Sox foiled Mike Mussina's first attempt to win his 20th game, knocking out the Orioles' ace in the fourth inning in an 11-3 Chicago victory, before 47,342.

The Orioles headed home from a wildly successful road trip a few days ago, no doubt feeling like nothing could keep them from marching right into first place in the American League East. But that was before the New York Yankees got to town.The Yankees are one of the four also-rans in the division, but you never would have known it from their performance during their three-game visit to Camden Yards. They scored a 5-2 victory last night to sweep the three-game series and drop the Orioles 3 1/2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays.

NEW YORK -- It wasn't pitching that did the Orioles in this time.Fresh off a horror show in Detroit during which the Tigers scored 47 runs in three games, the Orioles got a strong effort from Jamie Moyer here last night. But despite several early opportunities against Jim Abbott, the Orioles were unable to provide any offensive support.The result was a complete game, eight-hit, 4-1 win for Abbott that extended the Orioles' losing streak to four, matching their longest winless streak of the season.

Baseball's trading deadline usually comes and goes with more unfulfilled expectations than actual deal-making, but this year . . . this year was very different. Stars like David Cone, Bobby Bonilla, Bret Saberhagen, Andy Benes and David Wells changed teams, many of the trades coming in the last hours before the midnight deadline on July 31. To recap:THE WINNERS1. New York Mets. They unloaded two huge salaries, Bonilla's and Saberhagen's, from their '96 payroll -- they weren't going to compete next year, anyway -- and loaded up on prospects, picking up minor-league outfielders Alex Ochoa and Damon Buford from the Orioles and pitcher Juan Acevedo from the Rockies.

They didn't have enough time to redo their comeback script, so the Orioles were unable to write a seventh chapter to their latest winning streak yesterday afternoon.Instead of falling behind early by a significant margin, as they had done the two previous nights and three times on the current homestand, this time the Orioles kept it close through the early stages.But there was no answer to the volley of late-inning home runs by Jim Leyritz, Bernie Williams and Danny Tartabull that the Yankees parlayed into a 9-5 victory that stopped the Orioles' winning streak at six. The loss also left the Orioles five games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays, who come in for the first of three games here tonight.