Chen leads Orioles to 5-2 win over Yankees

By DAVID GINSBURG

BALTIMORE (AP) Pitching well as a rookie in Major League Baseball is difficult enough. Dominating the New York Yankees is something else entirely.

After seven games with the Baltimore Orioles, Chen Wei-yin appears comfortable doing both.

Chen pitched seven innings of four-hit ball to help the Orioles beat CC Sabathia and the Yankees 5-2 late Tuesday.

Baltimore earned a split of the two-game series and improved to 1-4 at home against New York.

Chen (4-0) allowed two runs, struck out four and walked two in a masterful performance. The 26-year-old Taiwanese took a shutout into the seventh inning against the Yankees' formidable lineup - and made it look easy.

"He located really well," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "Command of the fastball was really key tonight. Once he showed them that he could do that on both sides of the plate, the whole world opened up for him."

Chen's first outing against the Yankees came on April 10, when he allowed a homer to the first batter he faced and ended up giving up two runs and seven hits in 5 2-3 innings.

He was far better this time.

"The first time, the debut I was so nervous," Chen said through an interpreter. "This time, I was just like I've had this experience already so everything was fine to me."

Chen retired 10 straight before Robinson Cano's leadoff double in the seventh.

Two outs later, Curtis Granderson hit his 13th home run, an opposite-field drive that barely cleared the 7-foot wall in left - a fan wearing a Yankees jacket knocked his glove into the mitt of rookie outfielder Xavier Avery.

"I don't know if it was somebody in midnight blue or black and orange there," Showalter said. "I've got an educated guess."

It was only the third homer yielded by Chen in 44 innings this year, and it got the Yankees to 4-2.

Chen came out to the mound for the top of the eighth but was pulled by Showalter when the Yankees sent up a pinch hitter. That enabled the Orioles fans in the crowd of 24,055 to give the left-hander a hearty standing ovation.

Chen outpitched Sabathia (5-1), who came in 16-2 lifetime against the Orioles, including 10-1 at Camden Yards. The husky left-hander was seeking to go 6-0 for the first time in his career, but instead absorbed his first loss in Baltimore since April 2009.

Orioles centerfielder Adam Jones gave the credit to Chen.

"It started with our pitching," he said. "Chen halted that lineup and gave us an opportunity."

Updated May 16, 2012