Can the Orioles withstand the loss of J.J. Hardy?

It says here that the Orioles will be all right playing the next six to eight weeks without shortstop J.J. Hardy. That would not be something several other teams may be able to say or do when you consider how good Hardy is at shortstop.

And beyond his considerable defensive skills, his quiet leadership will be missed on the field. He's a rock for both Jonathan Schoop and Manny Machado. But he can still be a leader and mentor for that pair while on the disabled list.

The Orioles are fortunate to have not one or two, but three players that can play well at short. They could start with Machado, who was drafted as a shortstop and played there throughout his minor league career. Ryan Flaherty has proven capable at short and Paul Janish is an above-average defender there who combines talent and experience somewhat like Hardy. When it comes to shortstop, the Orioles have some solid depth and it will come into play now.

Having said this, last season the Orioles fared much better when Hardy was on the field. An 81-81 team for the year, they played .571 ball at 64-48 with Hardy starting at short and 17-33 (.340) when he did not.

In 2015, five players started at shortstop when Hardy did not. The Orioles went 12-14 with Everth Cabrera there, 2-7 with Flaherty, 1-8 with Janish and 2-4 with Machado.

Hardy's left shoulder has clearly been healthy this season and he has been hitting the ball hard at times. His exit velocity of 93.8 mph off the bat ranks tied for 20th in the majors. By comparison, Manny Machado is at 91.3 mph and Chris Davis is at 90.6 mph.

Beating that team from the Bronx: The Orioles won their last five games against the Yankees last season. Tonight, they look for their first six-game win streak against New York in 19 years. The last time the Orioles won six in a row against the Yankees was with an eight-game win streak that ran from Sept. 19, 1996-Sept. 6, 1997.

The Orioles also have a chance in 2016 to post their third consecutive season series win versus the Yankees for the first time since 1980-82. The O's went 13-6 against New York in 2014 and 10-9 last year. That was news since the Orioles' season series record against New York between 1983 and 2011 was 2-26-1.

The Orioles are 21-13 against the Yankees since June 21, 2014 and they are 14-4 since 2014 at home.

Stat check: The stat OPS is produced simply by adding a player's on-base percentage to his slugging percentage. The OPS+ stat takes that a step further. A 100 OPS+ is league average, and each point up or down from 100 is one percentage point above or below league average. Since OPS+ adjusts for league and park effects, it's possible to use OPS+ to compare players from different years and on different teams. Here is where the O's players rank so far this season in OPS+:

191 - Manny Machado
156 - Mark Trumbo
134 - Chris Davis
94 - Joey Rickard
93 - J.J. Hardy
89 - Pedro Alvarez
83 - Jonathan Schoop
76 - Adam Jones

On the farm last night: Triple-A Norfolk (9-16) lost 1-0 at Louisville on a walk-off homer in the ninth. The Tides were held to three singles. Right fielder Dariel Alvarez batted leadoff, going 1-for-4. Trey Mancini went 0-for-3 and is hitting .214 after his first eight Triple-A games.

Double-A Bowie (11-12) was rained out at Richmond and will play a doubleheader there today at 5:35 p.m. with right-hander David Hess starting Game 1 and lefty Jayson Aquino in Game 2. Bowie's Corban Joseph, the younger brother of Caleb Joseph, has 14 hits in his last seven games and a 15-game hitting streak. Joseph is batting .387 (24-for-62) during the streak. He is batting .347 for the season. After a slow start, Bowie is 10-5 in its last 15 games.

Single-A Frederick (9-16) won 11-2 at Wilmington. Right-hander Cory Jones gave up just one run over six innings to improve to 1-1 with a 3.94 ERA. The Keys had three doubles, two triples and a homer among their 13 hits and season-high 11 runs. Aderlin Rodriguez went 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs. Frederick got two hits each from Jay Gonzalez, Wynston Sawyer, Jomar Reyes and Jonah Heim.

Frederick right-hander Matthew Grimes was named the Carolina League Pitcher of the Week on Monday after he went 2-0 with an ERA of 2.31 last week. He gave up two runs over 6 1/3 on Sunday, the longest outing by a Keys pitcher this year. An 18th-round pick out of Georgia Tech in 2014, Grimes began play yesterday ranked fourth in the league with a 1.75 ERA.

Single-A Delmarva (14-10) split a doubleheader at home with Charleston. Delmarva won the opener 5-0 as lefty Brian Gonzalez gave up just four hits over six innings to improve to 3-0 with a 2.70 ERA. In his last three starts, Gonzalez is 3-0 with an ERA of 1.69. In the nightcap, Charleston won 7-2, as the Shorebirds were held to three hits.

For the eighth time in the last 10 years, Delmarva had a winning record in April. The Shorebirds finished the month at 13-9 to produce their best April winning percentage since the 2011 season.