Yankees 1, Orioles 3 (F/5): Rain-shortened loss sends Yanks into the break at .500

Tonight's game against the Baltimore Orioles called off after four and a half inning, meaning that the O's have won the series finale, 3-1, to head into the All-Star break with a five-game lead over the Yankees. Not really the way you want to head into the break if you're the Yankees, but after a two hour rain delay, you'll take anything to make it stop.

Brett Gardner put the Yankees on the board with a solo homerun to lead off the game against Kevin Gausman. The Yankees' offense was pretty quite after that until what would be the end of the game in the 5th, ending with only four hits.

Gausman pitched all five innings for the Orioles, giving up a run on four hits, striking out two without walking a batter.

Chase Whitley, back in the rotation with Masahiro Tanaka on the DL, held the Orioles scoreless before the first three innings before giving up Baltimore's three runs in the 3rd.

Nelson Cruz walked to open the 4th, then Chris Davis went the opposite way to left for his 15th homerun of the season, a solo shot that put the O's on the board and give them a 2-1 lead. JJ Hardy followed with a double; Whitley retired the next two hitters before Johnathan Schoop singled to center to score Hardy, making it a 3-1 game.

David Huff took over from there, replacing Whitley, who was charged with three runs in five hits, with two walks and four strikeouts.Huff retired Nick Markakis to end the 4th, then walked Steve Pearce to open the bottom of the 5th right before the game went into a two-hour rain delay.

With this rain-shortened loss, the Yankees will head into the four-day break at 47-47 -- obviously not what Brian Cashman and company envisioned when they spent nearly half a billion dollars over the offseason, but with the starting rotation all but completely dead, it could be worse. You never want to say that you're happy with your team being at .500, but I'll take it with this Yankees team and the way things are going.

The Home Run Derby is tonight in Minnesota, and the All-Star Game is on Tuesday, Derek Jeter and Dellin Betances will be there -- Tanaka won't be, he decided he'll skip the game. Jeter will be the starting shortstop for the AL, as you know, and I'm sure they'll do something special for him in his final Mid-Summer Classic.

Until then, I'll see you guys throughout the week on the blog, hopefully. The full Yankees squad will be back on Friday when they open up a series against the Cincinnati Reds at Yankee Stadium.

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