DETROIT _ The Orioles certainly signed up for this. Andrew Cashner likely did not.
With six innings of three-run ball to notch his third straight quality start of the season, Cashner and the Orioles still came up on the wrong end of Tuesday's 4-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers on a legitimately freezing night at Comerica Park.
Cashner has given the Orioles a chance to win in three of his four starts since signing a two-year deal in late February to join the team's barren rotation.
They didn't again, because four runs proved too many for the offense to overcome.
After getting his first taste of a legitimate big league offense last year with the Texas Rangers, following years of low run support with the likes of the San Diego Padres and Miami Marlins, Cashner hardly could have thought that he'd run into such problems with the once-vaunted Orioles offense.
As the Orioles fell to 5-12, losers of four straight and six of seven, it's clear that for now, even a good start for Cashner isn't enough to break out of it.
It wasn't the seven shutout innings he posted in his previous start, but Cashner kept the Orioles in a game that would have been very easy to lose touch of. Even with a first-pitch temperature of 36 degrees, the wind chill factor put it about 10 degrees cooler. Actual attendance was no more than a quarter of the announced 15,530 tickets sold, creating for a dead atmosphere. There wasn't much to spur the Orioles on, save for the hopes of beating a team not included on the list of playoff teams that litter their April schedule and jump-starting a season that's been pretty cold itself.
A two-run home run by Victor Martinez put the Orioles down early, and left fielder Trey Mancini's second home run of the season to almost the exact same spot in left halved that deficit.
But the Orioles left two on base in the fourth inning and scored just once in a promising fifth inning. With runners on first and second and two down, center fielder Adam Jones singled to right field. But Manny Machado tried for third, expecting the throw to go home, and was thrown out easily to end the inning.
Cashner allowed a bunt single to Leonys Martin and a triple to third baseman Jeimer Candelario to score the go-ahead run for the Tigers. Otherwise, he was his average self, allowing three runs on seven hits with three walks and six strikeouts to bring his ERA to an even 3.00 through four starts.
The Orioles managed nothing against the Tigers' well-rested bullpen _ weather had kept them from playing since Friday. Brad Brach, a closer who hasn't worked since Wednesday, pitched a scoreless seventh inning before Mychal Givens yielded a run on a blooper, a walk, and a wild pitch in the eighth.
But an Orioles offense that rates as one of the league's worst didn't do anything to change the result. With two runs or fewer now in eight of 17 games, they're averaging 3.12 per game. Three of those games are Cashner's starts. With 12 strikeouts Tuesday, they have 189 on the season _ 11.12 per game. They only took three at-bats with a runner in scoring position, and the one they scored on ended up ending the inning anyway.
