Chen strong so far at Atlanta

By Steve Melewski

Orioles

June 17, 2012, 11:16am

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It's not a one-hitter but Orioles left-hander Wei-Yin Chen is having a good outing today at Atlanta, blanking the Braves through six innings. He has a 2-0 lead with the O's looking to get the series victory. He gave up four singles over the first three innings, but got double-play balls to help him out in each of those innings. That included a nice play by Chen to field a bunt with two on and none out in the third to start a unique 1-6-4 double play with J.J. Hardy covering third and Robert Andino at first. Despite pitching well today, Chen's only 1-2-3 inning of the contest came when he got a ground out, strikeout and fly out in the last of the fifth. He has allowed five hits with one walk and two strikeouts on 86 pitches as the game heads to the seventh. Chen entered today with a 6-2 record and an ERA of 3.68 through 12 starts. A win would make him 3-0 over his last three starts. A win would also make Chen and Jason Hammel the first pair of O's pitchers with seven wins by this date since Mike Mussina (8) and Sidney Ponson (7) did it in 1999.