"Orioles third baseman Miguel Tejada stood motionless in the bottom of the seventh inning, his glove hanging by his side, his eyes fixed on the giant video board in center field that offered a reminder of the miscue he had just made.

It was Tejada who said after the Orioles' loss Sunday in Toronto that all the blame being showered on manager Dave Trembley was misdirected and it was the players who needed to step up and turn this season around.

Tuesday night would have been a good time to start, but instead, the Orioles continued their habit of finding painful ways to lose games. After two poor outings, rookie left-hander Brian Matusz gamely held down the New York Yankees over 6 2/3 innings, but Tejada's throwing error in the seventh broke a tie and brought home two runs as the Orioles fell, 3-1, before an announced 43,509 at Yankee Stadium,

"I mean we can sit here and say whatever, but I believe good teams make their breaks," said Orioles first baseman Ty Wigginton, who couldn't handle Tejada's one-hop throw. "Right now, we are not making our breaks. We got to find a way to do that."

It was the Orioles' sixth straight loss, their eighth in the past nine games, and their 13th in the past 16 contests. The Orioles (15-37) also have lost six straight games to the Yankees.

Matusz, who had allowed six earned runs or more in three of his past four starts, showed his grit in getting out of a jam with men on first and third and no outs in the sixth. He retired Marcus Thames and Francisco Cervelli on pop-ups and then struck out Curtis Granderson, who had homered for the Yankees' only run to that point, to keep the score tied at 1.

"I would say that Matusz showed everybody what he's all about and why we think so highly of him with the way he pitched," Trembley said. "A first-class, gutty performance."

Matusz exited the game in the seventh, leaving with men on second and third and two outs and Alex Rodriguez in the batter's box. Trembley handed the ball to converted starter David Hernandez, who got Rodriguez to hack at his first pitch and hit a bouncer to Tejada."