ANAHEIM -- It's a simple observation from the inside, a plaintive plea from a player best known for his contributions to clubhouse chemistry. Kevin Millar is still fiddling with his Orioles' erector set -- and he thinks the experiment has plenty of time to pan out -- but he can't help but wonder why his teammates don't interact the way they did in Boston.

"Talk the game. Be baseball players," he said on Sunday. "That's what we do here. We're not here to collect paychecks and have rims and tires on our cars and dress pimpy. We're here to win baseball games. We've got to talk baseball and we've got to be baseball players. We've got to challenge each other, help each other and do that. I don't think that goes on enough.

"We've got too many sideshows. We've got too many guys worrying about what suit they're wearing. We need to talk baseball. We need to talk the game. That's the big thing here."

That was the most arresting sound bite in a wide-ranging interview regarding the team's woes. Baltimore slid a season-high six games under .500 Saturday night and fell a season-high 8 1/2 games out of first place, but Millar made it clear that he feels the situation is far from hopeless. He just wants his team to present a more united front over the next few months.

"You need to talk the game, you need to pick each other up, you need to pat each other on the back. You need to talk about what the [opposing] pitcher has, have guys come up to each other and say, 'This is what he's throwing,'" he said. "That can go on on the plane -- whether you're playing cards -- and getting camraderie together. That's the thing we lack.

"Bench players are as important as your starters. ... We need guys helping guys out. That's got to go on here. Has it? No. We've got to be focused as a group -- one-to-25, not one-through-nine."

Baltimore manager Sam Perlozzo seems to be drifting to that same conclusion, and he staged a team meeting earlier in the week to get his point across. Perlozzo was miffed that he didn't see good effort from the O's in one particular game, but he said Sunday that appearances can be deceiving.

"I like to say that it's never as bad as it looks when it's bad and it's never as good as it looks when it's good," he said. "We're obviously not playing our best baseball right now. We've been beat up a little bit, but I think the guys still go out at the beginning of the game and the effort is still there.

"What you see is when the starting pitching pitches good, the team looks good. When the starting pitching doesn't pitch good, then you don't look as good. I think that is to be said about every team out there."

Precedents: Millar pointed to two recent teams to underline that you can't make too much of the first few months. He mentioned the 2004 Red Sox -- who struggled at first and went on to win the World Series -- and the '05 Orioles, who held first place for 62 consecutive days before falling to a fourth-place finish.

"We went through a bad time in '04 with the Red Sox. I don't know if you guys remember. The first two-and-a-half months, there were articles that we were the biggest frauds, payroll frauds," he said. "We turned it around in July. We got hot at the right time. That's what this team can do.

"[The Orioles] were opposite last year -- they were hot as hell the first two-and-a-half months and people thought they hung the moon, [but] then they fell. You want to play OK, but you've got to find a way, when you get hot, to stay consistent."

So far, the only place Baltimore can point to consistency is on the road -- and not in a good way. The Orioles have lost 15 of their last 19 road games and haven't won a road series since the second week of April. They're tied for the third-worst road record (8-16) in the American League. And they're not sure why.

"We knew things weren't going to be easy. We were hoping things would all into place for us," said Perlozzo. "We've had some issues. We've had some injuries. We've had some guys not producing the way we thought they are capable of yet, but we have four months of baseball left.

"It's not time to throw in the towel. We just have to find a way to get things back on track. It's a long haul."

Odds and ends: Perlozzo said that Jay Gibbons will rejoin the team on Tuesday and will return to the field sometime shortly thereafter. Gibbons suffered a knee injury against the Angels and left the team Sunday to attend his mother's funeral.

"I think it's pretty much a matter of pain tolerance for Gibby. We really won't know until he gets back," Perlozzo said. "He's supposed to check with the trainers Monday when he gets back in town to see where he stands. Hopefully, he'll be ready to go Tuesday. If not, I am sure it will be a day-to-day thing for him."

Perlozzo also said that Daniel Cabrera was progressing in his rehab from shoulder inflammation and may be able to return to the mound next week. Baltimore is currently working with a four-man rotation, thanks to a couple well-placed days off. Perlozzo said Cabrera would make a rehab start with Double-A Bowie before the O's assess his status.

"We're kind of thinking that he could possibly pitch for us around the 6th [of June]," Perlozzo said. "We're hoping to get his rehab scheduled so he possibly could go the 6th -- if not, the 8th. He seems to be doing well. I talked to [Triple-A Ottawa manager] Dave Trembley this morning and he said, 'Daniel said that he's feeling good.' That's good news.

Quotable: "Not now. Not in May. When you've got 100-plus games left in the big leagues, you look at all the teams that are playing well, and they could all of a sudden hit a wall. You look at all the teams that are playing bad, and they can all of a sudden start playing better. You see it all the time." Millar, talking about not letting frustration hit home just yet

Coming up: The Orioles get an off-day Monday and will resume their season with a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Tuesday. Rodrigo Lopez gets the ball in the opener, and Tampa Bay will counter with Doug Waechter.