Orioles recall Crichton and option Wilson

The Orioles made their roster move this afternoon, recalling reliever Stefan Crichton from Triple-A Norfolk and optioning Tyler Wilson to the Tides.

The shuttle will need to be gassed up.

Wilson held the Red Sox to three runs over six innings last night in an 8-3 win. He threw 84 pitches and wouldn't be available until Tuesday.

Chris Tillman is joining the rotation on Sunday and Ubaldo Jiménez appears to have kept his spot after giving the Orioles three scoreless relief innings Wednesday night in Boston following Kevin Gausman's ejection.

Crichton became eligible today to rejoin the Orioles after they optioned him on April 24. He worked 2 1/3 innings Wednesday afternoon in Charlotte.

Crichton is 3-0 with a 2.31 ERA in five appearances with Norfolk, allowing three runs and 10 hits in 11 2/3 innings. He's walked two batters and struck out 13.

The Orioles selected Crichton's contract from Norfolk on April 13. He appeared in two games and allowed three runs and nine hits in three innings.

Crichton's major league debut came on April 16 in Toronto, where he surrendered two runs and five hits in 1 2/3 innings.

Alec Asher and left-hander Richard Bleier, optioned yesterday by the Orioles, have returned to Norfolk's active roster. Catcher Daniel Fajardo returned to Single-A Delmarva.

Manager Buck Showalter was asked this afternoon if the Orioles grew closer while they faced with so much adversity in Boston.

"I don't know if you can get any closer," he replied. "Our guys, it's that type of environment. It's very, I don't want to say nurturing, but you're wearing our colors and they find something to like about you. But we don't have a corner on that. It happens a lot in sports.

"I don't want to lessen, trust me, what happened in Boston and the challenges there. I don't, because it was tough, but we got through it, we got out of there. We were more frustrated that we didn't win three or four games because they were there for us. Just like New York. We had a really good chance to win two or three there and didn't. Our guys are thinking more about the baseball part of it as much as anything else.

"I understand in today's world there are phones after every game. All their friends and people are weighing in on everything. You know how it is. You feel like you've got to respond to them, and the social media is constantly keeping it on everybody's mind, what's going on. It's another challenge that today's player has to deal with that obviously wasn't there before."

Steve Melewski, my colleague at MASNsports.com, is handling the rest of the night. I'll be back on the beat Saturday morning.