Hyde on the Orioles-Yankees series: “Hopefully we can finish the first half strong”

BALTIMORE — The Orioles and New York Yankees begin their final series before the All-Star break on Friday night, and things are not going well for either team.

Although they were defeated by the Chicago Cubs and won two of three games against the Yankees since June 18 in the Bronx, they only achieved a record of 8-11,^th-20^thThe Orioles maintain their two-game lead in the American League East.

The Yankees have a record of 6-17 since June 15^thand the Boston Red Sox are now 5 ½ games behind the Orioles.

“When you’re playing in the division or close to it in the standings, those are important games,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “It’s not a season-determining game, but you definitely want to play well. We’ve played well against our division for the most part over the last few years and hope we can keep it that way.”

The Orioles have won five of seven games against the Yankees. They won three of four games at Oriole Park on April 29.^th-2.May^andand two of three last month at Yankee Stadium.

After this weekend’s series, the Orioles will not face the Yankees again until three games in the final week of the season, on September 24th.^th-26^th.

“We’re not going to let ourselves get caught off guard,” said Hyde. “We’re in first place right now and we want to stay there. Hopefully we’ll play better than we did in the last series.”

In their last 28 games, the Orioles have a team earned run average of 4.88, 27^th in baseball.

“I think it’s really tough to be really, really good at something all the time for six months,” Hyde said. “There’s going to be moments and series where it doesn’t go so well. Overall, we just haven’t been playing that well the last few weeks, and pitching is one of the areas.”

“We need to throw the ball better and give our offense better chances. And the offense needs to do a better job of relieving the pressure on the pitchers… I expect us to throw well in this series, and I hope we pitch well out of the break as well.”

Last season, the Orioles finished the first half with five straight wins and began the second half with three more, for a season-high eight straight wins.

“You’d like to see us play well at the break,” Hyde said. “The break will be good for everyone, but we need to get back to what made us good in the first half, which is pitching really well, defending really well and having good at-bats. We’ve been good and bad the last few weeks. Hopefully we can finish the first half strong.”