The Daily Times from Salisbury, Maryland • 15

Marcus Allen calls it quits17 John Daly returns to Augusta18 Sports Friday, April 10, 1998 THE DAILY TIMES Salisbury, Md. 15 fin noc. Ull Ms Slum Ms! (B) Capital City Bombers at Delmarva Shorebirds 1 Tonight 7:05 p.m. Arthur W. Perdue Stadium Delmarva opens 1998 home campaign tonight against Cap City By John Evans Daily Times Sports Editor 1 1 4 By Position Stats through Wednesday's Games DELMARVA opened the season with a .267 batting average in the first seven games.

Pitching has been inconsistent for the Shorebirds. Jordan Romero The starting pitching has been good in most games, though. One of the pitchers who had a good first outing for the Shorebirds is tonight's probable starter, Jordan Romero. A 21-year old righthander, Romero had a strong six-inning effort in t. Sunday's 11-3 win over the Macon Braves.

He gets his second start of the season against Capital City's Todd Cummins, who is 0-1. Other strong outings by the Shorebirds came from Matt Achilles, who started and pitched six shutout innings against Macon in Monday's 4-0 win, and Richard Bauer, who has had two good outings but-'' stands 0-1 despite his 3.27 earned run average. with a .375 batting average and has batted in three runs. Last year in 32 games with the Gulf Coast League Orioles, Werth batted .295 and had eight home runs in 88 at bats. Designated hitter Daren Hooper is also off to a good start, batting .280 and leading the team with seven runs batted in.

He chalked up the team's first home run of the season in Wednesday's 9-6 loss to Piedmont. Ashanti (Peanut) Davison is also batting .375, although he has just eight at bats this season. Another player with big promise for the team is 19-year-old outfielder Darnell McDonald, who is in his first profes-, sional season after being the Baltimore Orioles' first-round pick last season. McDonald has SALISBURY As reigning South Atlantic League champions, and with 19 of 25 rostered players having played for last season's Appalachian- League champion Bluefield, the Delmarva Shorebirds open their 1998 home season hoping to get back into championship form after a disappointing road series to open the season. The Shorebirds, 3-5 after winning last night's series finale against the Piedmont Boll Weevils, will meet the Capital City Bombers (5-3) tonight at 7:05 p.m.

for the first of four single games through Monday. Leading the Shorebirds after their first two series is one of Jayson Werth .375 IB Franky Figueroa .200 2B EddyiGaravit .150 3B RicrtaTdpazjv .238 SS Eddy Martinfez .286 LF Darnell McDonald, .267 CF Luis Matos .276 RF Curtis Charles .190 DH Daren Hooper .280 Jordan Romero 1-0 3.18 ERA CAPITAL CITY Tom Stanton .167 IB Pat Burns .333 2B Cesar Crespo .211 3B Maurice Bruce .143 SS Jerson Perez 1 .222 I LF Brandon Copeland .333 CF Alex Escobar .231 .167 DH Angel Espada Todd Cummins 0-1 3.85 ERA Last season's bullpen was a strength for the team having the league's most saves with 43 but this year the team has had a hard time holding leads in the late innings. As an example, witness Tuesday and Wednesday night's losses when the starters shut down the 'opponents through six innings, only to have the bullpen give up the lead. Tim! Pkete by TM Dudak Jayson Werth two highly-touted prospects on the team, catcher Jayson Werth. Werth, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound second-year player, leads the team ''V Nature plays big role at Masters Couples leads after shooting 69 Orioles double up K.C.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) Perhaps Tiger Woods and the other young bombers will make Augusta National obsolete, someday. Thursday's first round of the Masters was not that day. When Woods walked away from here last year with a green jacket on his back and a record 18-under par on his score-card, the cry went up from some to Augusta. 1 Fred Couples n'ated them again in the first round, making two-putt birdies on Nos.

2, 8 and 13 as he shot a 71, two strokes behind Couples. But as much as he overpowered the course last year, this time Woods hung in there with one gutsy par save after another. He hit every fairway but his iron game was off. Ten times he missed the green and had to scramble to save par. Seven times he was successful.

With gusts that topped 30 mph, bent flagsticks and whipped sand from the bunkers in a blinding swirl, the best players in the world were forced to use everything in their bags, from spin shots to knockdowns to bump-and-runs. "What you had to do was invent shots all day long," said Jack Nicklaus, who was playing in his 40th Masters, has a record six green jackets and shot a 73. And they were forced to make a ton of putts, many merely to save par. This was not a day to attack Augusta National. "If it had not rained, I don't think anyone would have broken par," Couples said about the 2-inch downpour overnight that delayed the start of play by 90 minutes so the bunkers could be drained and greens dried.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Joe Carter drove home the go-ahead run in the eighth inning and the Baltimore Orioles tied a club record with five double plays in winning their seventh straight, 2-1 over the Kansas City Royals. Carter's two-out single scored Roberto Alomar to lead the Orioles, who have not lost since opening day and are 7-1 for the fourth, time in franchise history. Alomar singled with one out against Jose Rosado (0-1) who relieved Pat Rapp to start the eighth, and moved up on Eric Davis' single and a long fly ball. The Royals loaded the bases against reliever Norm Charlton with none out in the eighth, but left fielder B.J.

Surhoff caught Jeff King's line drive and made a strong throw to the plate to get Shane Halter. Jimmy Key (1-0) allowed one run and six hits in seven innings. Armando Benitez pitched the ninth for his second save. The Royals took a 1-0 lead in the fourth when Jose Offerman reached on a fielder's choice and came around when Carter booted King's single in right- center. AP Photo Defending champion Tiger Woods plays out of the sand on the tenth hole during the opening round of the 1998 Masters Thursday in Augusta, Ga.

Make it longer. Grow rough. Move the bunkers back. But all it took to reveal the devilishly deceiving design of the grand old course planned by Bpbby Jones 65 years ago was an unnerving wind and some wicked greens. Fifty-six of the 88 players had finished the first round before Fred Couples was finally able to post a score below 70, rolling in a 6-foot par saver on No.

18 for a 69, a lead that held up. Woods, trying to become only the third man to win consecutive Masters, played the par-5 holes 13-under par last year and domi- Couples said the course played "probably a 9, maybe an 8Vi" on a scale of 1 to 10. Paul Stankowski, a Texan used to playing in the wind; 1994 Masters champion Jose Maria Olaza-bal, a Spaniard who plays in the wind of the European Tour; and Scott Hoch, a great ballstriker, got to 2-under-par 70. "I used to say in college the wind is my friend," said Stankowski, who went to Texas-El Paso. "But here at Augusta, it's a real challenge." Colin Montgomerie, Paul Azinger, Phil Blackmar, Fuzzy Zoeller and Woods were the only other players to break par, getting in with 71s.

If no one among the 10 players still on the course when play was suspended by darkness gets in at 70 or lower, Woods and Zoeller who crossed paths after last year's Masters when Zoeller made racial jokes about Woods would be paired in Friday's sec ond round. The wind on Thursday gusted so hard it even affected putting. "It was blowing as hard today as possibly any wind I've played in," Blackmar said. "Thank goodness the course is surrounded by trees. If we had been an exposed course, the wind would have blown the ball off the greens." Azinger made a birdie on the second hole, then ran off 16 consecutive pars.

Bottom of the First Shorebirds come home winners Ravens looking for a draft-day deal Birds a 4-1 lead. Daren Hooper J.4iHM aisu iiau iwu una, gcuuns triple in the eighth infflng'H where between 13 and 18," Newsome said. At this point, Baltimore has only five selections. The Ravens traded their third-round pick to Indianapolis for quarterback Jim Harbaugh and dealt their seventh-round selection to Pitts The Baltimore Ravens failed in their bid to move up in the first round of the NFL draft, so now they're looking to take a few steps backward. The Ravens, confident they can snare a quality cornerback or wide and scoring on Richard rWs nf- single prior to Figueroa's ihorebirds homer.

Jayson Werth also had Boll Weevils 7 4 The Delmarva Shorebirds come home as winners, after beating the Piedmont Boll Weevils 7-4 here Thursday night. The win upped the Shorebirds' record to 3-5 and gave them a split of the four-game series against Piedmont. Stars at the plate for Delmarva were Franky Figueroa and Eddy Martinez, who had two hits each as the team pounded out 11 hits. Figueroa had three runs batted in and his eighth-inning two-run homer put the game away for the Shorebirds, who led 4-3 entering the inning. Martinez two-run double in the sixth keyed a four-run inning that gave the mm an RBI hit for the team.

Getting the win was Brandon Huntsman (1-1), who pitched 5 23 innings allowing six hits and two receiver toward the middle of the first round, hope to trade the 10th overall pick in the April 18-19 draft. "Everything's heating up. I talked to three different teams this morning," Ozzie Newsome, the Ravens' director of player personnel, said Thursday afternoon. "I would say we'll probably move back some burgh last year. "We'd like to have more picks, but right now we have 58 players under contract," Newsome said.

"When you pick in the fifth and sixth round, to say those guys are going to make the team is kind of a reach. That would be asking a lot; last year was different." Associated Press walks. Derek Brown earned a save in pitching a perfect ninth inning. TKE DAILY IS THE CmClAL KElTSrAPCt CFTKZ ZV.ZTZZZ -J.