Jones day-to-day, Norris pitching at Norfolk, plus wrapping up 3-0 loss

Orioles center fielder Adam Jones is day-to-day with a mild sprain of his left ankle.

Jones had an X-ray taken at Camden Yards and was sent out for an MRI which didn't reveal any structural damage.

"We'll see what tomorrow brings," said manager Buck Showalter.

Showalter said Bud Norris will start Tuesday at Triple-A Norfolk before rejoining the Orioles. It will be Norris' third start on his injury rehab assignment.

"Hopefully, that will be his last start," Showalter said. "It's the last step. Get his legs under him. We're not looking for him to pitch nine shutout innings. Just looking for him to continue down the path.

"He's very close. We'll see what the next few days bring. Without any off days, it's hard to plan too deep."

Wei-Yin Chen surrendered two solo home runs in three innings today and took the loss despite working seven innings and being credited with a quality start.

"Wei-Yin pitched well," Showalter said following a 3-0 loss to the Rays. "We didn't do much. I think I counted eight balls we hit hard. Not a whole lot. They hit some balls hard that we caught. Ryan (Flaherty) made a big play there. But just couldn't mount much.

"Usually with 4 o'clock games, most of the scoring is done early on because from 5 o'clock on, it's hard to see. That's one of the problems with the 4 o'clock starts."

Rays starter Erasmo Ramirez shut out the Orioles on three hits over seven innings. He began the day with a 6.62 ERA.

"A lot of changeups, made use of a liberal plate," Showalter said. "He did well with it. Same for both clubs. He had good stuff. He stayed in attack mode. They made some nice defensive plays behind him."

Opponents tend to pitch the Orioles backward, throwing off-speed stuff to a team known to feast on fastballs.

"They did it last year and we handled it well. And we have at times this year and will again," Showalter said. "But he had a lot of things working in his favor today that he made good use of. He pitched well. That's why they're pitching about as well as anybody in the league. That's one of their fortes. You saw a good example of it today."

The Orioles can't seem to build any momentum, failing again today to reach .500.

"You try to be consistent and there are a lot of things you strive to be consistent in, a lot of areas besides the physical part of it," Showalter said. "You just kind of hope the season settles down and we get some consistency. There's a lot of excuses there, none of which I want to hear. It's challenging playing really good teams, the best in the world, and you've got to do a lot of things well over a really long period of time to do what we need to do and what we've done in the past. Our guys know that."

The Orioles came closest to scoring in the fifth on Flaherty's single into left field, but Joey Butler threw out Steve Clevenger at the plate. Clevenger had two of the Orioles' three hits.

"That's one of those after-the-fact and what have you," Showalter said. "It didn't look like we were going to be getting any opportunities there. Bobby (Dickerson) is one of the best in the business and he's made some great decisions for us. That's one of those, not necessarily wrong. If we knew how everything was going to turn out it would be real easy over there. He had to make a really good throw to get him, you don't know what's going to happen afterwards. But that's potential to maybe kind of get it flowing a little bit offensively.

"There wasn't really a lot of ebb and flow momentum. Obviously the ball was flying today if you could get it up in the air. Runs were at a premium. Sometimes in a game you have to take some chances that may not work out."