O's head West, Hernandez on hill

Dave Trembley hands his No. 5 starter David Hernandez the ball tonight as the Orioles begin a nine-game roadtrip starting in Oakland and ending in Boston. Maybe this is just what the O's need... a change of scenery after a dreadful homestand where they lost six straight - suffered two sweeps - to division rivals the Blue Jays and Rays. Sorry to remind you all.

Trembley said he was going to shake things up and he stuck to his word as Ty Wigginton started the game at second in place of Brian Roberts... Hernandez, however, didn't get things started on the right foot. But hopefully the offense can pick him up and a new, more positive streak can begin.

Hernandez has allowed six base runners in the first two innings alone... In the first, he started the game by giving up a single to Rajai Davis and a double to Daric Barton. Ryan Sweeney then grounded out, 4-3, scoring Davis to put the A's up, 1-0. Kevn Kouzmanoff''s sac fly to Jones in center made it a quick 2-0 ballgame. In the second, Hernandez again led the inning off with back-to-back hist... this time a double from Eric Chavez and a single from Adam Rosales. Hernandez would then hit Travis Buck to load the bases with NO outs. Not good.

After striking out Cliff Pennington, Davis recorded his second hit of the game in as many at-bats with an RBI single to left scoring Chavez. Hernandez got out of the jam by striking out Daric Baron and getting Ryan Sweeney to line to center.

Here we are... 3-0 Oakland. The A's are no cake walk this year. They have nice mix of young talent (Rajai Davis, Andrew Bailey - last year's AL ROY winner - and Gio Gonzalez) and veteran players (Mark Ellis, Eric Chavez and Ben Sheets) and a good manager in Bob Geren.

With that being said, Rosalaes doubled to start the fourth and Adam Jones  missed the cut-off man which allowed Rosales to take third. Dave Trembley stressed the importance of not giving a team (the Blue Jays or Rays) four outs... and it shouldn't be any different with the A's. Rosales just scored on a Wigginton error. Make that two errors now for the O's and a score of 4-0 A's.

The O's need to play better baseball... now.