SAN FRANCISCO - With the Orioles playing their first-ever game against the San Francisco Giants last night, they had never faced Barry Bonds, but they had seen enough SportsCenter highlights to know how to pitch to him in dangerous situations.

Basically, avoid him at all costs.

Bonds saw 16 pitches last night, and two of them were strikes. He wound up going 1-for-1 with a single and three walks.

Eventually, it wasn't Bonds who hurt the Orioles. It was David Bell, who hit a tie-breaking homer in the eighth inning off Orioles reliever Rick Bauer to lift the Giants to a 4-3 victory at Pacific Bell Park.

With two outs in the eighth inning, Bauer left a 2-0 fastball over the plate, and Bell deposited it just over the left-field wall, giving the Orioles their sixth loss in the past nine games.

"That's the last thing you can allow to have happen," Orioles manager Mike Hargrove said. "It was a young pitcher's mistake, and those are the things that drive you absolutely crazy."

Bauer (3-3) continued his recent struggles and was still kicking himself afterward.

"I know the situation," Bauer said. "I'm not supposed to give up a home run there. That's how my slump's been going."

Orioles starter Scott Erickson held the Giants to three runs over six innings but couldn't reverse a streak that has seen him go winless since April 28. One of the three runs charged against him was unearned, but in his past 10 starts he is 0-4 with a 5.63 ERA.

"There's no point in getting mad about it," Erickson said. "You just go out and do the best you can. But it's reached a funny point where it's been almost two months where something has happened to change the complexion of the game."

Aside from Marty Cordova, who hit two home runs, Erickson's teammates did little to help his cause. Catcher Brook Fordyce dropped a throw to home plate in the fourth inning, giving the Giants an unearned run. And when Hargrove lifted Erickson for a pinch hitter in the seventh inning, the Orioles squandered a leadoff double, when a run would have put Erickson in line for the victory.

Mike Bordick doubled, then Hargrove went with pinch hitter Ryan McGuire, who has one career sacrifice bunt. On the bench, Hargrove had Brian Roberts, who has two sacrifice bunts this season.

McGuire squared to bunt at one point, but wound up striking out against Giants reliever Tim Worrell. Bordick stole third base, putting the Orioles back in prime position, but Melvin Mora tapped a weak bouncer back to Worrell for the second out, and Jerry Hairston flied to right field, ending the inning.

"It's important to get that runner to third," Hargrove said of the McGuire at-bat. "And we didn't do that."

Erickson wanted nothing to do with Bonds his first two trips to the plate. With a runner on third in the first inning, Erickson threw four straight sinkers, none of them higher than the tops of Bonds' shoes.

Bonds came up next in the third inning with a runner on second. Erickson missed with two fastballs, then Fordyce stood up and extended his arm for the intentional walk. As if the first one were unintentional.

Before the game, Bonds talked about what it's been like to walk a major-league-leading 85 times this season. No one else in baseball had walked more than 61 times.

"That's baseball," Bonds said. "Defense dictates the game. It's the only sport where they say, 'If they don't want you to play, you're not playing.' You can win a game defensively just as much as you can offensively, so you've to be prepared on both sides."

With the Giants leading 3-2, Bonds led off the fifth and finally got something to hit. Erickson threw two balls, drawing more boos from the sellout crowd of 40,634, and then left a pitch over the plate. Bonds smacked it into right field for a single.

Bonds' fourth at-bat came against Bauer, who pretty much had the same game plan. He threw one strike in the at-bat, narrowly catching the outside corner with his third pitch, but everything else was sneaker level.

Trailing 2-0 entering the fourth inning, the Giants took the lead, capitalizing on Fordyce's error. With Minor on third base, Tony Batista ranged away from third base to field a grounder from Bell. Batista fired home in time to catch Minor, but Fordyce dropped the ball.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo followed with a double just past a diving Batista at third, scoring Bell all the way from first. That tied the score 2-2, and starter Kirk Rueter put the Giants ahead 3-2, blooping a single into right-center field to score Shinjo from second.

Cordova tied the game at 3 with his second homer off Rueter, this time taking a 1-1 pitch and depositing it over the left-center-field fence. It was Cordova's eighth home run of the season.

Orioles today

Opponent:San Francisco Giants

Site:Pacific Bell Park, San Francisco

Time:4:05 p.m.

TV/Radio:Comcast SportsNet/WBAL (1090 AM)

Starters:Orioles' Travis Driskill (4-0, 3.50) vs. Giants' Ryan Jensen (6-5, 4.38)