Danny Darwin

At Oriole Park at Camden YardsDay ... ... ... Time ... ... TV ... ... StartersTonight ... 7:35 ... ... HTS .. ... ... Aaron Sele (8-7, 3.83) vs.... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Arthur Rhodes (3-5, 5.81)Tomorrow night ... 7:35 ... HTS ... ... Danny Darwin (7-5, 6.30) vs.... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Mike Mussina (16-5, 3.06)Saturday night ... 8:05 ... 13, 7 .. .. Joe Hesketh (8-5, 4.26) vs.... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Sid Fernandez (6-6, 5.15)Sunday ... ... 1:35 ... .. 13, 20 .. .. Roger Clemens (9-7, 2.85)

Under normal circumstances this weekend would be the ideal opportunity for the Boston Red Sox to gain ground in the American League East. However, the defending division champions are not operating under normal guidelines for a contender.Having just been swept by the Yankees in a three-game series in Fenway Park, the Red Sox have a four-game losing streak and have lost seven of their last 10. The slump has dropped them 3 1/2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays, their biggest deficit of the year.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Shortstop Cal Ripken hasn't been the only Iron Man up the middle for the Orioles this season.Catcher Chris Hoiles has started all but two of the team's 33 games. After catching six innings last night against the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome, he had caught 272 of the team's 294 inings.The Orioles play a day game today after a night game, but manager Johnny Oates said he will not use that as an opportunity to rest Hoiles and give Jeff Tackett some work."When you can go five weeks needing a fifth starter only three times, that tells you you have a lot of days off," Oates said.

Now, let the real games begin.Temporarily, but possibly for the rest of the year, the playing part of baseball is on hold. Something about a labor situation.And the chances are it will get ugly before it gets presentable. If the players think the owners are playing dirty pool now, wait until the two sides start trying to split the difference.After the salary cap comes service time. A minor point now and perhaps a giveaway item at the negotiating table later. But a potential sticking point nevertheless.

Less than a day after tagging Red Sox ace Roger Clemens for four runs on 10 hits, the Orioles ran into Boston's real 1993 stopper, Danny Darwin."He's been outstanding for us. If you could name an MVP for the first half of the season, he would be it," said Red Sox manager Butch Hobson, whose team is 1 1/2 games behind the first-place Toronto Blue Jays. "Plus, the guys enjoy playing behind him."Allowing one run and four hits through 6 1/3 innings yesterday, the right-hander er defeated the Orioles, 2-1. Darwin's 10th victory tops a staff that leads the American league in ERA and fewest hits surrendered.

The Fernando Valenzuela experiment has been an unqualified success, unless you want to get technical about it.Valenzuela has turned in three straight solid performances, but the Orioles have yet to win a game in which he has appeared. He pitched a strong 8 1/3 innings last night, but the Boston Red Sox scored a 2-0 victory and shut out the Orioles for the second night in a row.Right-hander Danny Darwin picked up right where Roger Clemens left off the night before, taking a one-hitter into the eighth inning before sharing the two-hit shutout with relievers Greg Harris and Jeff Russell.

Opinion: The Mariners won't trade Randy Johnson in the end. They think they can win the AL West.Fact: Red Sox pitcher Erik Hanson, on his salary declining from $2.7 million in 1994 to $1.1 million in 1995: "I took a bath." (He won five games in 1994.)Opinion: Best-case scenario for Joe Smith: Drafted by the fast-rising Dallas Mavericks, who are loaded with young stars (Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, Jim Jackson) and are looking for a big man.Fact: Longtime Masters observers say that no one, not Long John Daly or even Jack Nicklaus in his prime, was longer off the tees at Augusta National than Tiger Woods this year.

The Orioles greeted Tuesday's news of Hideki Irabu's pending trade from the San Diego Padres to the New York Yankees with a shrug. Likewise, they stood on the sidelines as 19 teams wrangled for Cuban right-hander Rolando Arrojo, a pitcher whose credentials do not include a verified age.While the club says it remains interested in future cases of Cuban defectors and a broadening Japanese market, assistant general manager Kevin Malone maintained last night...

NEW YORK -- What the Boston Red Sox did yesterday was complete the most destructive 4-3 week of the season with an 8-3 win over the New York Yankees.They don't have enough time to finish the job themselves, but in the past seven days, the Red Sox all but ended the race in the American League East.They are restricted to the role of active observer -- which puts them in the same category as some of the Yankee Stadium fans. But the Red Sox played the most dramatic role in the AL East the past week.

If the Orioles had beaten Toronto yesterday, you could've started drawing some favorable conclusions about them. If Arthur Rhodes had shut down the Blue Jays' lineup of future Hall of Famers, you could've said that he had turned the corner and was on his way to being one of the league's better left-handers.Nothing doing. Rhodes couldn't throw strikes with his slider and didn't survive the second inning, the Orioles missed numerous chances to make up an early deficit and Toronto beat the Orioles, 7-3, before 40,173 at Camden Yards.