Buck Showalter on Wei-Yin Chen and a 9-2 win

Wei-Yin Chen walked off the mound for the final time today to a nice ovation, many fans standing to applaud his performance in Game 1.

The final time today. Probably the final time as an Oriole.

The pending free agent was charged with two runs as he sat on the bench, but his 20th quality start this season pointed the Orioles toward a 9-2 victory over the Yankees before an announced crowd of 29,227 at Camden Yards.

Chen is 11-8 with a 3.34 ERA in 31 starts - the lowest ERA he's posted in four seasons with the Orioles.

"Good, huh? Yeah, Wei-Yin was good," said manager Buck Showalter. "He finished the season showing us the quality that he brought most of the year. That probably put him in the top seven or eight in ERA in the American League. He was good, really good. I thought the last five or six times out the depth of his breaking ball and arm speed on the changeup was really an improvement."

Showalter admitted that he watched Chen head toward the dugout and contemplated how it might not happen again.

"Sure, sure," Showalter said. "We all do. We're all human beings. Everybody does. Similar thoughts that our fans do. He's been a good contributor for us. It was a great signing for us and we'd love to have him back."

Showalter said he couldn't sum up Chen's importance to the team since the left-hander agreed to a four-year, $15.47 million contract. Certaintly not in one sentence. There's just too much ground to cover.

"He's been solid," Showalter said. "He made the adjustment to the big leagues. He was a guy who hadn't pitched every fifth day and you all saw how we kind of moved around. I think he was pitching on six days again today. You get to know him, he got to know us. He's a quick learner. Our guys made his path easier. He speaks better English than I do now, which is not saying a whole lot.

"I'm real proud of him. Anytime you go to another country, you realize how challenging it is for them, so you try to have some real sympathy for that, and he handled it real well. I see how he interacts with all our players. He's been a great competitor for us."

Gerardo Parra enjoyed one of his finest games as an Oriole with four hits and three RBIs.

"He had a really good day," Showalter said. "I thought (Mychal) Givens had a really big out against Alex (Rodriguez). They were getting ready to climb back in it. But Gerardo's a baseball player. He likes to play and he's fit in very quickly.

"If you look at his body of work on the season, you realize he's better than what he's shown here in the short sampling we've had. But he's still done some good things for us. He came in here early on and gave us some life initially and it looks like he's picking it back up again."

The Orioles need to win their last two games to finish at .500 for only the second time in club history. They were 76-76 in 1957.

"Winning baseball games is important," Showalter said. "If you're not the last team standing, then those type of things are for people who look at stats. We're going to try to win the next two games because that's what we strive to do and like to do and want to do, not because we're supposed (to). That's just what these guys are all about. You all have watched them many times this year. There's been so many positives this year. There's that negative feeding frenzy that goes on this type of year when you're not in the playoffs."

Without the postseason in their plans, the Orioles are left to consider all the changes pending in their clubhouse.

"I would be happy if I was given the chance to come back here, but sometimes as a professional player it's inevitable that you have to change teams and adapt to a new environment," Chen said through his interpreter.

"I don't know where I will pitch next year. I just know I will do my best to pitch each game."

The Orioles had at least 15 hits against the Yankees for the fourth time this season. Matt Wieters walked four times to tie his career high. No Oriole had walked four times since Nick Markakis and Mark Reynolds on May 6, 2012 in Boston.

Wieters extended his hitting streak to seven games, batting .455/.571/.773 (10-for-22) in that span.

Nolan Reimold reached base four times today and is batting .298/.376/.517 (45-for-151) with 25 runs scored in 46 career games against the Yankees.