You've watched this team all season.
You've seen players on the opening day roster, you've seen players recalled from the minors and you've seen the Orioles purchase the contracts of other players in the system.
Manager Buck Showalter is looking for nuggets, and not the breaded and processed kind. No dipping sauce.
Matt Wieters is a nugget, though some publications prefer the word "bust." He's a keeper. He's a guy you bring along while moving forward. He's a Gold Glove catcher -...
The Orioles played 27 consecutive games before finding an open date on their schedule today that hadn't been filled because of a previous postponement.
Not that anybody's counting.
Well, manager Buck Showalter recited the number a few times yesterday and shook his head. His players need a break.
If you play long enough, everyone will get on some sort of a roll. Or so it seems.
Vladimir Guerrero is 17-for-38 with four doubles, a home run and six multi-hit games in his last 10 games....
Orioles manager Buck Showalter believes that fastball command enabled Jeremy Guthrie to hold Tampa Bay to two runs and three hits over seven innings in tonight's 6-2 victory before an announced 14,669 at Camden Yards.
Guthrie has allowed three earned runs or fewer in his last five starts. He improved to 8-17 with a 4.22 ERA.
Buck Showalter talks with the media after the Orioles' win 6-2 over the Rays
"Obviously, his outing was the difference," Showalter said. "You know when you play...
Nolan Reimold hit his 10th home run tonight. He also hit the top of the left field fence.
It counts.
Reimold connected off Rays starter Wade Davis leading off the bottom of the third inning, the ball bouncing into the stands, to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. He's now 3-for-7 lifetime against Davis.
Reimold's last home run came Sept. 7 off the Yankees' A.J. Burnett.
Jeremy Guthrie struck out four Rays over the first three innings. He got B.J. Upton on a 93 mph fastball, Evan Longoria on a...
Triple-A Norfolk first baseman/outfielder Rhyne Hughes has been suspended for 50 games after testing positive for an amphetamine. The suspension begins at the start of the 2012 season.
Hughes isn't on the Orioles' 40-man roster. He made his major league debut in 2010, batting .213 with four RBIs in 14 games. He didn't move above Triple-A this season while batting .249 with 25 doubles, 15 homers and 59 RBIs in 92 games with the Tides.
The Orioles will play an exhibition game in Norfolk next...
Center fielder Adam Jones will stay on the bench, at least until the Orioles need a pinch-runner to distract the opposition's reliever, while nursing a sore right thumb. Matt Angle gets the start in center field against Rays right-hander Wade Davis.
For the Orioles:
Matt Angle CF
J.J. Hardy SS
Nick Markakis RF
Vladimir Guerrero DH
Matt Wieters C
Chris Davis 3B
Mark Reynolds 1B
Nolan Reimold LF
Robert Andino 2B
Jeremy Guthrie RHP
The Orioles released veteran left-hander Mark...
The Orioles won't start the 2012 season at Tropicana Field. That's known as breaking news.
They're back home for a three-game series against the Twins that begins on April 6 - exactly 20 years after Camden Yards first opened. The Yankees will follow the Twins to Baltimore.
As for interleague play, the Phillies will make a weekend trip to Camden Yards on June 8-10, followed by a mid-week visit by the Pirates on June 12-14. The Orioles also will continue their home-and-home series with the...
Matt Wieters says the Orioles aren't spoilers.
"I don't think we're really playing the spoiler," he said after last night's game. "We're just trying to play as well as we can against teams that are going to the playoffs."
Troy Patton says the Orioles enjoy being spoilers.
"It's kind of a joke, but we like to be spoilers," he said after last night's game. "We want to do everything we can to beat every team, so if they're in the race, so be it, we want to win every game."
So...
Orioles catcher Matt Wieters talked about his home run off Rays reliever J.P. Howell that gave the Orioles a 4-2 victory.
"I think it was a changeup," he said. "Jonesy did a good job over at first base distracting to where I thought I was going to get something up because you don't want to throw something in the dirt and let the go-ahead run get to second base. So I was able to just get a changeup up in the zone and just tried to get a swing on it."
Matt Wieters joins Jim and Rick to...
Manager Buck Showalter talked about Alfredo Simon, Matt Wieters and the satisfaction of a dramatic 4-2 win over the Rays.
"I said before the game, in order to have a chance at (David) Price, you've got to match a similar outing because you know runs are going to be at a premium. I thought that's what Alfredo did," Showalter said. "Still, you're looking for that consistency out of him. You see an outing like that, then you see some with the command not being there. He got a lot of outs, a...
Jake Fox doesn't get into many games, but he's making his rare appearances count.
Fox's two-out, pinch-hit double scored Nolan Reimold in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game, 2-2, and force Rays manager Joe Maddon to go to his bullpen.
Fox was batting for Kyle Hudson with two outs and Reimold at second. Reimold walked and stole second base with one out before Ryan Adams struck out.
David Price threw Fox two sliders, a changeup and another slider before his 92 mph fastball was lined...
The Orioles are holding a 1-0 lead that nearly slipped through their fingers in the second inning.
Actually, it almost crashed to the floor and shattered into a million pieces.
That's a lot of debris for a one-run lead.
The Rays loaded the bases with no outs on a single, walk and single. That's when Alfredo Simon went to work, striking out John Jaso on four pitches and inducing a double-play grounder with one pitch to Sean Rodriguez.
Simon started off Jaso with two 95 mph fastballs. He...
Manager Buck Showalter says the results of the X-ray taken yesterday on Adam Jones' right thumb are "very similar to the last X-ray" taken in early July.
Jones has some swelling in the thumb and stiffness in the knuckle, which makes it painful to grip a bat. It doesn't bother him to throw.
The Orioles haven't scheduled any other tests for Jones, who remains day-to-day.
"There are other more detailed X-rays you can get into, but I don't see right now where that's a need yet,"...
Kyle Hudson is starting in center field tonight. Adam Jones is out of the lineup for the fourth straight game.
For the Orioles:
Robert Andino 3B
J.J. Hardy SS
Nick Markakis RF
Vladimir Guerrero DH
Matt Wieters C
Mark Reynolds 1B
Nolan Reimold LF
Ryan Adams 2B
Kyle Hudson CF
Alfredo Simon RHP
Update: The X-rays taken on Jones' right thumb came back negative. It's still painful to grip a bat because of the swelling and stiffness, so he remains day-to-day.
Major League Baseball announced today that center fielder Adam Jones is the Orioles' nominee for the 2011 Roberto Clemente Award.
Jones is one of 30 finalists for the award, which recognizes a player who "best represents the game of baseball through positive contributions on and off the field, including sportsmanship and community involvement," according to the press release.
Here's more from the release. I'm in cut-and-paste mode:
Jones has been very active in the Baltimore community...
The Orioles have been reduced to playing spoilers again, which has become an unfortunate and unwanted September tradition in Baltimore.
They've got two more games with the Tampa Bay Rays, who have muscled their way back into the wild card race and are putting serious heat on the Boston Red Sox. The Orioles have three games against the Los Angeles Angels to complete this homestand, then three games against the Red Sox and four against the Detroit Tigers on their final road trip before...
Rookie Zach Britton offered the following assessment of tonight's outing, when he allowed four runs and five hits in five innings while failing to win his 10th game of the season:
Zach Britton talks about his outing in the Orioles' loss to Tampa Bay
"I think I was just overthrowing today," he said. "The first couple innings weren't bad. They were OK. But right when I got out of the stretch, I started overthrowing, leaving balls up, out over the plate. That's a team I had success...
Zach Britton said he was overthrowing tonight, which could at least partially explain the 100 pitches he threw in five innings, along with the four runs, five hits and four walks in the Orioles' 5-2 loss to the Rays.
"We talk about it almost every night, whether a guy has a good outing or a bad outing. It starts and stops with fastball command," manager Buck Showalter said. "That's one of the reasons Tampa is doing a good job with their starters. They have guys with good command of the...
Zach Britton has thrown 69 pitches in three innings tonight.
He'll need to become a little more economical with them. And real fast.
Britton walked a batter in the first inning. He walked a batter in the second. He walked two more in the third, when the Rays scored three times to take a 3-0 lead.
Britton also allowed three hits in the third - doubles by Brandon Guyer and Ben Zobrist, and a single to Sean Rodriguez.
Guyer was leading off the inning as the Rays' No. 9 hitter. Zobrist's...
Reliever Jason Berken came off the disabled list today after throwing a bullpen session Saturday at the minor league complex in Sarasota.
Nick Delmonico, the Orioles' sixth-round draft pick out of Farragut High School in Tennessee, stopped by Camden Yards today and took early batting practice. He'll head to Sarasota tomorrow for the fall instructional league.
Manager Buck Showalter was impressed with Delmonico, saying, "That's the way they're supposed to look."
Brian Graham, the...
