BALTIMORE – Jake Arrieta put on a performance that was a quite a crowd pleaser at Camden Yards. For the large portion of the crowd that came to root for the Phillies, that is.
Arrieta ran into trouble right away and the Baltimore Orioles never caught up Friday night as Philadelphia stopped a season-worst six-game losing streak with a 9-6 win.
Arrieta (2-8), the Orioles' opening day starter, lost his sixth straight decision. He was tagged for career highs of nine runs and 11 hits in four innings.
"Pretty difficult. Frustration seems to continue to build, and I am just having a hard time getting out of it," he said. "You know it's wearing on me a little bit searching for answers. Not being able to find them is tough.
"Going over the game in my head and trying to analyze things. I'm probably overthinking things a little too much. I'm just kind of lost right now," he said.
The Orioles, meanwhile, lost for the ninth time in 12 games.
"I can get big league hitters out. No question about that. And I can and do it at a high level," Arrieta said. "It's just a question of not putting a good start together in a stretch of four, five games. To go out in front of 40,000 and having a whole clubhouse counting on you, then to go out there and give it up like that, it's pretty frustrating."
Orioles manager Buck Showalter said right-hander Tommy Hunter will come up from Triple-A Norfolk to start on Saturday. Asked whether the corresponding move would mean Arrieta was being sent to the minors, Showalter said: "We'll sit down and weigh it out."
"He didn't really seem to get into a real rhythm. Philadelphia had a lot to do with that. They came out swinging the bats real aggressive," Showalter said.
"It was no good. Jake knows that. Probably some other things going on. It's a challenging game. I'm sure it's frustrating for Jake," he said.
Chris Davis and J.J. Hardy homered for the Orioles, who trailed 7-0 in the second inning.
This was interleague ball, purely AL style. Boppers ruled on a night when even ninth-place batters such as Mike Fontenot became dangerous.
Jim Thome doubled twice, legged out an infield hit and got his first RBI of the season. Shane Victorino homered and drove in five runs and Fontenot also connected to the delight of a crowd full of spirited Phillies fans.
The Phillies hit for the cycle, and then some, in the second inning alone — a homer, a triple, three doubles and a single. Philadelphia scored six times, with Fontenot's two-run shot coming right after his foul fly fell beyond Hardy as left fielder Endy Chavez backed off.
By the fourth, it was 9-4 and the teams had already combined for 10 extra-base hits. Victorino had homered, doubled, singled and matched his career high for RBIs by then.
Thome's dribbler past Arrieta went for a two-out single in the first inning when shifted second baseman Robert Andino had no chance to make a play from short right field, and set up Victorino's RBI single.
Thome lined a ground-rule double to right-center in the second that let Juan Pierre score the 1,000th run of his career. Thome doubled again in the fourth and scored on Victorino's eighth homer for a 9-3 lead.
Joe Blanton (5-6) hung around for 6 2-3 innings and stopped a skid in which he had been pounded while going 0-3 over four starts. He has allowed 11 home runs in his past five outings.
Jonathan Papelbon pitched the ninth and remained perfect in 16 save chances.
Davis hit an RBI single in the second and Andino added a two-run double. Davis had a leadoff homer in the fourth.
Hardy greeted reliever Michael Schwimmer with a two-out, two-run homer in the seventh.
The crowd of 40,459 was the Orioles' largest since opening day and was boosted by a throng of fans decked out in Phillies garb. With Citizens Bank Park sold out for the last 235 regular-season games, plenty of Philadelphia rooters made the short drive to see their team's first visit to Baltimore since 2006.
The "Let's Go, Phillies!" chants began in the first inning, with Baltimore fans playfully trying to shout them down.
When Carlos Ruiz hit an RBI single in the second, there was a collision of sound — the Phillies fans were yelling his nickname of "Chooooch" while the Orioles' backers were simply booing.
NOTES: Baltimore star Adam Jones went 0 for 4, extending his season-long drought to 14 at-bats. ... Orioles 49-year-old LHP Jamie Moyer is set to start for Triple-A Norfolk on Saturday night at Buffalo. He signed a minor league deal with Baltimore this week after being cut by Colorado.
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