Yankee Stadium

Let's be honest: This weekend is just killing time until next weekend, when a season's field could get flipped at Tuscaloosa's Iron Bowl and Reno's "Biggest Little Football Game in the World," Boise State at Nevada. Now is the time to muse, reflect, relax and take in a ballgame at Wrigley Field. America's pass time: Illinois and Northwestern are exchanging lineup cards Saturday at Wrigley Field. The football configuration is precarious to say the least, with only a few feet separating the back line of the east end zone from a padded wall.

NEW YORK — They were teacher-student batterymates 10 years ago with the Cubs, and now Joe Girardi and Kerry Wood are reunited in a manager-player role. "It's great," Wood said. "Honestly, it's the same as when he was catching. He was kind of like a manager then. Joe's always been a student of the game and great baseball mind and nothing's changed. "The only thing is he's not wearing the gear anymore. " Girardi is wearing the boss' hat now, and since Wood arrived from the Indians on July 31, theirs has been a unique relationship.

The Orioles have been waiting for years to develop young pitchers who will not be intimidated by the heavyweights of the American League East and will relish the opportunity of facing the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Left-hander Brian Matusz has opposed those teams only nine times in his career, far too small a sample size to draw any conclusion. The early returns, however, couldn't be any more encouraging for an Orioles team fed up with being punching bags against divisional foes.

Buck Showalter has been back to New York a few times in the past 15 years, as manager of the Texas Rangers and on Old Timer's Day to the old Yankee Stadium as well as a guest for Opening Day at the inaugural season at the new stadium. "They almost did too good a job of copying the old place, if you didn't look at the suites and everything else, you'd think you're in the same ballpark," Showalter said. When the Orioles play the Yankees Monday in New York, Showalter will be in the visiting dugout again.

Orioles third baseman Miguel Tejada stood motionless in the bottom of the seventh inning, his glove hanging by his side, his eyes fixated on the giant video board in center field that offered a reminder of the miscue he had just made. It was Tejada who said after the Orioles' loss Sunday in Toronto that all the blame being showered on manager Dave Trembley was misdirected and it was the players who needed to step up and turn this season around. If nothing else, Tuesday night could have been a feel-good victory with young rookie Brian Matusz being rewarded for another gritty start against the New York Yankees.

The Orioles' late-game rally that brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth inning Wednesday might have padded the team's abysmal offensive statistics and made the club feel a little better about itself before boarding a charter flight to Minnesota. But it did nothing to eradicate the previous eight innings, during which the Orioles seemingly botched or booted every ball or opportunity that came their way. Ultimately, they got what they deserved in a 7-5 loss to the New York Yankees that completed a three-game sweep before an announced 43,425 at Yankee Stadium.

Perhaps it would have been a little easier to accept if the decisive swing Monday night were delivered by Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter or another New York Yankee who has enhanced his already impressive career by beating up on the Orioles. But Randy Winn? The veteran outfielder, who was starting only because Curtis Granderson is on the disabled list and who hadn't hit a homer in more than a year, drove a fastball from Jeremy Guthrie over the right-center-field field wall in the fourth inning.

It doesn't matter who is in the other dugout, Brian Matusz approaches every start the same. A 23-year-old with unlimited confidence and an unwavering desire to compete, Matusz takes the mound every five days with the expectation that he's going to pitch a complete-game shutout. And that's pretty much what it takes for one of the Orioles' starters to get a win these days. Matusz turned in a quality start Thursday night against the New York Yankees, but that wasn't nearly enough with A.J. Burnett reducing the Orioles to a series of meek swings and weakly hit balls and Robinson Cano bashing ever pitch that he saw. Burnett allowed just three singles in eight shutout innings and Cano connected for two solo homers and a double in the Yankees 4-0 victory in front of an announced 26,439 at Camden Yards.