Chen Has Decent Debut; Orioles Lose Close One Late Against the Yankees...

Last night, the Baltimore Orioles played their longest game of the season – 12 innings – and lost to the New York Yankees, 5-4.

The Orioles have lost two in a row. They blew opportunity after opportunity on Tuesday and the Yankees won the game in the top of the eleventh as pinch-hitter Raul Ibanez drilled a ground-rule double to right off reliever Pedro Strop – who took the loss.

Strop allowed Cano to reach base and advance to second off a groundout by Alex Rodriguez before Ibanez’s fatal blow.

Former Oriole Clay Rapada earned the victory, and Mariano Rivera earned the save, the first of the season and the 604th of his long career. Rivera was flat-out dominant, and even at his advanced age, the Orioles seemingly had little chance once he came in.

Well, the big story of the night was the debut of Wei-Yin Chen. In his major league debut, Chen held his own against the Yankees until the sixth inning. Overall, he gave up four runs – two earned – in 5 2/3 innings, struck out six and walked one. He does not light up the radar gun, but used a mix of off-speed stuff and disrupting the batter’s timing to get outs.

Chen shows you the velocity on your pitches isn’t everything – but location is.


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