Andrew Vitelli, The Examiner
2008-07-30 07:00:00.0
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NEW YORK -

Orioles pitcher Dennis Sarfate is scheduled to make his first career start this afternoon. Sarfate has made 60 relief appearances in his career, including 45 this season.

“I like starting, and I feel like that’s where I should be,” said Sarfate, who was a starting pitcher in the minor leagues before coming up to the majors as a reliever with the Brewers in 2006. “Relieving is great, but I like being able to control the game and there’s no better way than to control it than from pitch one in the first inning.”

Sarfate is 4-1 this season with a 3.78 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 50 innings. While he plans to take a similar approach as a starter as he did coming in from the bullpen, Sarfate realizes he will have to pitch to contact in order to go deep into the game.

“I’m just going to have to go after guys, and get them to put it into play early in the count,” he said. “You can’t try to blow guys away from the first inning on. You’ve got to think about going five, six, or seven innings.”

Burres moved to pen

Sarfate will replace the struggling Brian Burres in the Orioles rotation. Burres is 7-7 with a 5.37 ERA this season.

Burres got off to a hot start, going 3-1 with a 2.59 ERA in April. In July, however, he has a 6.63 ERA after compiling a 7.27 ERA in June. Burres will try to return to form as a reliever.

“I’m just going to try to get better with each outing,” Burres said. “Try to get everything back in sync, and try to be more consistent.”

In his last start, Burres went just one and two-thirds innings, allowing five runs on seven hits, including two home runs. His focus in the bullpen will be keeping his pitches low in the strike zone.

“It’ll be down, down, down, then one pitch will be up,” he said. “And that pitch will be hit hard.”

Manager Dave Trembley believes that Burres’ biggest problems have been his propensity to give up home runs and his inability to get left-handed batters out. Burres has allowed 16 home runs this season, and lefties are batting .344 against him.

Trembley hopes becoming a reliever will help him get on track.

“He won’t go out there thinking ‘I’ve got to go nine,’ so maybe that will be easier for him,” Trembley said. “He’s going to pitch out of the bullpen basically to get some success and hopefully get some confidence back.”

Jones hurts Yanks

Adam Jones, who hit his first career grand slam on Monday, is hitting .304 in July after hitting .323 in June. Jones, who was batting just .245 at the end of May, entered Tuesday’s game batting .280.

“I’ve been locked in all year,” Jones said. “Now, the results are finally happening.”

Jones has given the Yankees trouble, hitting .310 with 10 RBIs in 10 games. His five RBIs on Monday were a career high.