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George Horton ran a college baseball powerhouse at Cal State-Fullerton, the kind of program that had no place for someone like Kurt Suzuki. Horton had never seen or heard of Suzuki before a scout pal mentioned the high schooler in Hawaii.

Baseball's winter meetings begin in earnest Monday and this was supposed to be the year that a lot of the impact signings were made before the sport's annual powwow.

With the Orioles' offense struggling to produce runs, Jason Hammel again took his team on his shoulders by delivering a masterful start against a Washington Nationals team that owns the second-best record in the NL.

After a rocky opening, 23-year-old Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg held the Orioles bats in check while getting two key hits to hand Baltimore a 9-3 defeat at Nationals Park.