Hunter Harvey: "I'm feeling great right now"

Hunter Harvey doesn't know when he's going to be activated from the injured list and jump into a bullpen that's been missing him through the first half of the season. However, he's on the current road trip for a reason.

He's getting close.

"I'm feeling great right now," Harvey said today in a Zoom conference call with the media. "I've been feeling good for the last few weeks and hopefully here soon I'll be able to get back out there and start pitching in some big league games. So hopefully, soon."

The holdup has been soreness in his forearm and elbow that prompted the Orioles to shut him down in summer training camp and send him to the injured list.

Harvey's injury past has been written and reviewed for years, but he didn't panic as the elbow area began to bother him during camp. He wasn't experiencing the same pain that led to Tommy John surgery and other shutdowns.

"When it first came about I didn't think it was anything too bad," he said. "It didn't feel like it ever did before. Those couple years where I kept getting hurt, especially with the forearm, it hurt really bad, and this didn't really seem like anything. I didn't think it would be anything serious at the end of the day, so it never crossed my mind of being something like it was in the past.

"It was just kind of uncomfortable. I do think I could have pitched with it and everything would have been fine, nothing serious would have come from it, but we just wanted to play it safe and take a couple days off and kind of build back up, and that's what we did. But it was never any sharp pain, nothing like that. It was just uncomfortable."

Harvey had been facing hitters at the secondary camp site in Bowie prior to joining the Orioles in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"We're progressing pretty good," he said. "We're kind of just taking it day-by-day, making sure everything's good and it's been going great so far, so we're just going to stay on page with that."

The restrictions on Harvey had been lifted. He's cleared to throw all of his pitches.

"We're going day-by-day and we're really not sure what's going to come this week," he said. "We'll just kind of see what happens as each day progresses."

Former major league closer Bryan Harvey might have grown more impatient than his son. There are no games to watch and no access to the camp site.

"It's been tough with Dad," Hunter said. "Dad's definitely not used to not being able to come see me. It's killing him right now. He's calling me three or four times a day. He's blowing me up. Same with my brother."

Reporting daily to Prince George's Stadium has enabled Harvey to more accurately critique some of the young pitching prospects in camp. Everyone who passes through is impressed, especially with a couple of former first-round selections.

"I think it's going good down here," Harvey said. "It also helps that we've got some good hitters down there so it will challenge some of those guys, especially some of the young guys like DL (Hall) and Grayson (Rodriguez). I think it's going good. We've got some great arms down there. It's exciting to see what's going to happen. They're doing a great job down there developing guys.

"I talk with DL Hall a lot every day. He's got some electric stuff. It's crazy. He's got a big arm, he's left-handed. He's got a bright future. And obviously with Grayson Rodriguez, he's just all-around a great pitcher. So they're young and they've got a lot of ... I wouldn't know how to explain it. They're just going to be really good."

There's an extra motivation for Harvey to leave Bowie for good and get back on the active roster. He wants to reclaim his status as having the best hair on the team.

Third baseman Rio Ruiz is the current champion with an impressive flow.

"Rio says he's not growing a mullet, but I told him he was," Harvey said. "So yeah, I think he's trying to get on the mullet train."