Updates on Tate, Martin, Blach and more

Orioles reliever Dillon Tate remains day-to-day with inflammation in his right elbow, an injury that occurred after he was struck by Pat Valaika's comebacker during Friday night's intrasquad game.

Tate is trying to win a job in job in the bullpen, but he's losing valuable innings.

"Still having some soreness, still hasn't thrown yet," manager Brandon Hyde said earlier this afternoon in his Zoom conference call.

"Hoping he gets a ball in his hand here pretty soon, but there's still some swelling in there. We're just waiting for that to calm down."

Hyde also said that yesterday's surgeries on shortstop Richie Martin and pitcher Ty Blach went "extremely well." Martin had a fractured bone repaired in his right wrist. Blach underwent a ligament-reconstructive procedure on his left elbow. They'll miss the truncated 2020 season.

"Our medical staff was very happy with how their surgeries went," Hyde said.

Blach remains in the player pool, which holds 43 players at Camden Yards, but he's going to be subtracted.

Wade LeBlanc is slated to go five innings in tonight's intrasquad game and Kohl Stewart is going to work four. And it's going to be ramped up from the previous scrimmages.

It's always been a team in white jerseys versus a team in orange, but captains LeBlanc, Alex Cobb, Chris Davis and José Iglesias chose the two sides. Crowd noise will be pumped into the ballpark, the public address system and scoreboard will be used and umpires again will work the game, which is going to last around seven innings.

The coaching staff has been divided between the two teams.

"There's a little bit of internal competition going on We have captains and I wanted to make it as competitive as possible," Hyde said.

Hyde quipped that it was a "concealed draft" and wouldn't share the identity of the first overall selection.

"We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings," he said.

The captains have the most service time on the team.

"The draft was pitchers first and then position players," Hyde said. "But being commissioner, I was heavily influential in making sure that it was even as best as I could. It was pretty lively. The draft, there was a lot of energy, there was some yelling back and forth on who wanted who, so it was fun."

The crowd noise experiment likely will carry over to the regular season.

"I think we all want to see what it's like," Hyde said. "I've never seen it before. I know it's going around the league a little bit. I've seen some stuff on Twitter and some other players where teams are piping in some noise. I think it's interesting. We're giving it a look in the next few days."

And a listen.

"Maybe we'll take a poll tomorrow in this (media) group and see who likes it and who doesn't like it," Hyde said. "That might influence us going forward."

Meanwhile, the Orioles are holding a separate set of workouts at the alternate camp site in Bowie. Ryan Mountcastle figures to head over there before opening day, with the Orioles wanting him to concentrate primarily on left field.

"I'd rather not promote somebody as a DH ever," Hyde said. "But I do feel like we're putting a plan together for him to get as much left field reps as possible with first base being kind of a secondary position at this time. We want him to work in left field and get him as comfortable as we possibly can really from spring training until now and going forward. To get him to continue his work on a daily basis in left field."