Failing to take over sole possession of first place in the American League East while the Yankees were in town, the Orioles will try to accomplish something else today. They will attempt to have a quiet off-day. Or maybe I'm just rooting for one. Nick Markakis' thumb surgery couldn't be scheduled until Tuesday. The Orioles probably will wait until Tuesday to select outfielder Endy Chavez's contract, which will require a 40-man roster move. I thought it would make sense to select LJ...

The stretch drive has arrived in Major League Baseball. Now there are just 22 games left for the Orioles in the 2012 regular season. Once again, we can say that if the season ended today, the Orioles would be in the playoffs as they would claim the second wild card berth and would meet Oakland in a one-game playoff for the right to advance to a series against Texas. After Sunday's loss, the Orioles are just one game out of first place in the American League East at 78-62, but they are also...

Of course, the Nationals were disappointed they couldn't pick up a win yesterday to close out their homestand on a positive note and stay even with the Braves, who won in 10 innings to cut the gap in the National League East to 5 1/2 games. The postgame frustration didn't linger too long, however. As the Nats packed up for a six-game road trip and put their 8-0 defeat behind them, they commenced with their annual rookie hazing, giving the veterans a chance to get a few laughs at their...

Manager Buck Showalter covered other topics today besides Nick Markakis' surgery on Tuesday. Here are a few of them: On Zach Britton: "His command was challenged. He was carrying good stuff. They did a real good job of making him bring the ball up, which a lot of people have tried to do, and Zach is usually able to throw strikes down in the zone. Zach was missing by a length of a ball, and he wasn't getting much borderline. Unfortunately, for him, most of the hits off him were broken bats...

You'd think that when a team faces a starting pitcher twice in a 13-day span that they'd have a pretty good idea what was coming the second time around, wouldn't you? "Yeah, you would think," Adam LaRoche said. That didn't help the Nationals against Ricky Nolasco. The Marlins right-hander, who came into today with a 4.64 ERA this season, shut out the Nationals back on Aug. 28, and he did the same thing this afternoon, giving up just four hits over nine strong innings. "He did the...

Zach Britton struggled with his command today, especially in that fourth inning where he walked three and the Yankees scored four times. But he said the ground ball that hit him in the face at the end of the third inning, was not a problem for him an inning later. "It didn't really hurt," he said. "It hit my eye and moved my contact around but it didn't do anything and really didn't have an effect on anything today. Not at all." What did hurt Britton was New York's ability to lay off...

Davey Johnson sat down for his postgame press conference and flashed a smile. "Well, there's not much to say about that one," he said. Not much positive stuff, anyway. The Nationals lost to the Marlins 8-0 today, putting the wraps on a 8-3 homestand. All in all, the Nats should be pretty pleased with how they played over the last week and a half, but they did very little today against Ricky Nolasco, who has thrown back-to-back shutouts against them. "He can get nasty when he starts...

Nick Markakis just told reporters that the surgery he will have tomorrow to repair his broken left thumb could have him back playing baseball again in "around four weeks" - if the Orioles are still playing games then. "It's good and bad," Markakis said. "They said the surgery will actually knock off about three weeks of recovery. So, hopefully we are looking at somewhere around four weeks. You know, it's good news and bad news, I'm just going to go ahead and get it done and get it out...

Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis is expected to undergo surgery on his broken left thumb Monday in Sarasota. The decision was made after Markakis had a CT scan on the thumb this morning at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Rather than have an MRI on Monday, Markakis will fly down to Sarasota, where Dr. Brian Schofield - the same surgeon who removed the piece of broke hamate bone from his right wrist this summer - will insert a small plate in his left thumb. Update: The Orioles just announced that...

Zach Britton took the mound today with a record of 4-0 and ERA of 0.94 over his previous four starts. But it didn't go nearly that well for him, and he allowed five runs over 3 1/3 innings as the Yankees crushed the Orioles 13-3 at Camden Yards to gain a split of their four-game series. The Yankees arrived in town Thursday with a one-game American League East lead and will leave with that same edge on the Orioles. Today's game drew 40,346 to the Yard and the four-date series attracted...