Chen to make rehab start Thursday at Double-A Bowie

CHICAGO -- Orioles pitcher Wei-Yin Chen will make one more rehab start, for Double-A Bowie on Thursday, and the organization hopes to have him back within a week or so.

"I want to be fair to him and to our team in the bullpen," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said of the decision to have Chen pitch another rehab game.

"Billy [Castro, bullpen coach] knows him real well and Rick [Adair, pitching coach] does, and that played a big part. Billy thought he was really close and needed one more start to be sure. … The last thing I told him was, 'Go down there and win. Go down there and pitch like you're trying to win that game for Bowie.'"

Chen, who has been on the disabled list with a left oblique strain, pitched for Bowie on Saturday night and went five innings, allowing four runs on five hits and two walks. All four of his runs came in the fifth. Showalter said the plan is to get Chen to go around 90 pitches on Thursday.

"I'm hoping that's his last start there," Showalter said of Chen, who will help stabilize a rotation that added Scott Feldman on Tuesday in a trade from the Cubs. "That kind of figures into some things we're doing, too. We had to get through his first outing there to see where we were in order to push the timeline a little bit up on this trade."

Chen has been sidelined since sustaining injury his May 12 start against Minnesota. He is 3-3 with a 3.04 ERA in eight starts this season.