Troy Patton not surprised his name has surfaced in trade rumors

When a report came out over the weekend that the Orioles were floating Troy Patton's name in trade talks, Patton said that didn't surprise him even a little bit. "I kind of assumed," Patton said this afternoon. "When my suspension came out and I still got a deal from the team I kind of thought my name might be circling around for a while. We'll see how that goes. "It's not the first time since I've been here that this has been the case where I could potentially be gone. But there is nothing I could do about it so we'll just kind of wait and see what happens. I'm aware of them but there is nothing I can do, so I'm kind of waiting to see how it shakes out and what they decide to do. I feel good and I'll be happy to pitch wherever. We'll see what happens." Patton missed the season's first 25 games after testing positive for an amphetamine in violation of Major League Baseball's joint drug prevention and treatment program. He said he took an Adderall pill late last season, not to enhance his performance, but to improve his energy and alertness. He doesn't believe, however, that his name surfaced in trade rumors because of that suspension. "No, it's a lot of baseball-related issues," he said. "It goes along with having too many lefties in the pen. You don't need four lefties in the pen. T.J. (McFarland) is a great long reliever and (Brian) Matusz and (Zach) Britton are both very capable of doing what I do. How many times is my number going to come up where I'm useful when guys are getting taxed in the middle of the season? I understand the numbers game." Since rejoining the Orioles from the restricted list May 1, Patton is 0-0 with an ERA of 2.45 over five games. He gave up a run in his first outing but has pitched four outings without allowing a run since then. Plus he knows teams are always looking for left-handed relief. "Yeah, it's fortunate that I throw with the wrong hand," he said laughing. "It's probably why I'm still here today. You're a little bit, I won't say valued, but rare. That always helps. But I don't enough about other teams' needs to see which would need a lefty so we'll wait and see." Patton worked on some changes to his mechanics recently to better repeat his delivery and speed up his arm action. So far, he is getting the desired results. He pitched a scoreless inning yesterday on 13 pitches. "It's been going good the last few times out," Patton said. "I tweaked some things mechanically and I feel like I have a more consistent arm slot. "It's a little bit more of an athletic motion. And I eliminated the windup completely this season. Which is something new. I've always been a little bit kind of stubborn about pitching with a windup with no one on base. But I've pretty much accepted my career path as a bullpen pitcher and I was just working on a consistently more athletic delivery out of the stretch."