From Thursday’s b the paper:

Things got testy in the Bronx Tuesday night — maybe not Ravens’ training camp testy, but it was close. A nine-run deficit after two innings will do that to you.

After the O’s jumped out to a big lead on the Yankees, Baltimore pitcher Daniel Cabrera ran a fastball in on the hands of Derek Jeter, drilling the New York superstar on the left hand and knocking him out of the baseball game. It seemed innocent enough, just a pitcher attempting to back a batter off of the plate. The Yankees obviously didn’t see it that way.

Three innings later, Yankees reliever – and former Oriole – LaTroy Hawkins tried to send a message by pitching high and hard at Luke Scott, prompting the benches and bullpens to empty as players rushed on to the field to presumably stretch their legs and ask each other how their mothers are doing.

Unfortunately for the hockey fans in attendance, that’s all that happened.

It might have been different had Hawkins actually hit Scott, but the Yankees weren’t even able to execute a simple bean ball. If you paid me $3.75 million to play baseball, you can be sure I’d plunk a batter if you asked me to.

It was just one of those nights for the Yankees, especially for Jeter, whose costly throwing error in the first kept an Orioles’ rally alive and eventually doomed starter Mike Mussina. The gaffe gave Baltimore an extra at-bat, and the O’s got the most out of it, scoring seven two-out runs and chasing Mussina from the game before he was able to get that phantom third out.

And of course the New York faithful let the Moose know they weren’t big fans of his work. The only way he could have been booed louder is if he got involved in some baby mama drama on the Jerry Springer Show. Where’s the loyalty?

All and all, Tuesday night’s 12-2 win was easily one of the Orioles’ finest performances of the season. The Orioles scored 11 of their season-high 12 runs with two outs. Cabrera had another strong outing. Adam Jones went 4-for-5 with four runs batted in. And Scott got his revenge in the eighth inning when he nailed a Jose Veras pitch over the right field fence.

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