dustin ackley

Orioles closer Zach Britton made a quick return from his sprained left ankle against Yankees Thursday.

Sometimes, it¿s hard to tell where the good pitching ends and the poor hitting begins, but not on Thursday night.

Now that the much-anticipated midseason trade deadline has passed, it's probably a good time to take stock of what happened over the past week and consider how it might impact the Orioles and the American League East.

It is currently steadily raining at Camden Yards and the tarp is still on the field less than one hour before the Orioles are slated to play their series finale against the Seattle Mariners this afternoon.

The Orioles will open their three-game series against the Mariners tonight at Camden Yards.

The Orioles margin for error this season has been razor thin. They know it, and the statistics back it up. That streak was snapped in a 6-3 Orioles loss before an announced crowd of 36,508 at Camden Yards.

On Friday, in the Orioles¿ 2-1 win against the Seattle Mariners, Wei-Yin Chen pitched into the eighth in one of his more impressive outings of the season, allowing just five hits and one walk while striking out a season-high eight batters.

He needed 14 pitches to record two outs and escape the eighth inning in what became a 2-1 Orioles victory.

The Orioles just finished a grueling 10-game road trip against three powers of the American League West with a 6-4 record and series wins in Anaheim and Seattle.

Catcher Matt Wieters is up for his second consecutive American League Gold Glove Award, center fielder Adam Jones will be going for the second (2009) of his career and shortstop J.J. Hardy is seeking his first.

The only thing forgiving to the Orioles on Monday night in Seattle was the official scorer at Safeco Field. The Orioles were only charged with one error ¿ raising their major-league high to 70 -- in their 6-3 loss to the Mariners Monday night, but anyone staying up past the late local news to watch Baltimore¿s comedy of non-errors knows better than that.

Robert Andino can't squeeze a sure out and the Orioles bats go cold after third inning as skid continues.