BALTIMORE—The Orioles and New York Yankees begin the final  series before the All-Star break on Friday night, and things haven’t been going well for either team.

Despite being swept by the Chicago Cubs and going just 8-11 since taking two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx from June 18^th-20^th, the Orioles maintain a two-game lead in the American League East.

The Yankees have gone 6-17 since June 15^th, and the Boston Red Sox have moved to within 5 ½ games of the Orioles.

“Any time you play in the division or are close in the standings, those are important games,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “It’s not make or break your season, but you definitely want to play well. For the most part, we’ve played well against our division the last couple of years, and hopefully we keep that going.”

The Orioles have won five of seven against the Yankees. They won three of four at Oriole Park on April 29^th-May 2^nd, and two of three last month at Yankee Stadium.

After this weekend’s series, the Orioles won’t play the Yankees again until three games in the final week of the season, September 24^th-26^th.

“We’re not sneaking up on anybody,” Hyde said. “We’re in first place right now and we want to stay there. Hopefully, we play better than we did last series.”

In their last 28 games, the Orioles have a team earned-run average of 4.88, 27^th in baseball.

“I think it’s really tough for six months to be really, really good at something all the way through,” Hyde said. “You’ve going to have moments and series where things didn’t go so well. Overall, we just haven’t played as well the last couple of weeks and pitching is one of the areas.

“We need to throw the ball better, and we need to give our offense a better chance,  and the offense needs to do better in taking some pressures off of the pitchers … I expect us to pitch well this series, and I hope we come out of the break pitching well, as well.”

Last season, the Orioles concluded the first half with five straight wins and began the second half with three more, a season-high eight-game winning streak.

“You’d love to see us play well going into the break,” Hyde said. “The break’s going to be good for everybody, but we’ve got to get back what made us good in the first half, and that was pitching really well, playing really good defense and taking good at-bats. We’ve been hit and miss for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, we can end the first half strong.”