Wieters on wrist injury; Showalter, Wright and Joseph discuss O's loss to Jays

TORONTO - Orioles manager Buck Showalter revealed after today's game that catcher Matt Wieters was not available this afternoon. He provided that information when asked about not using Wieters or anyone else as a possible pinch-hitter in the seventh inning of the O's 5-1 loss to Toronto.

The Orioles had runners on first and second with one out and had just ended David Price's shutout bid. However, Junior Lake and Paul Janish both struck out to end the threat.

"Matt was not available to hit today," Showalter said. "He had a sore (left) wrist from the dive at first base (last night). So he was not available today, hopefully he'll be available tomorrow."

Wieters said after the game he hopes to return Sunday.

"It feels better now than it did when I woke up in the morning, so that's good. It's just a matter of resting it today and hopefully we can get it better by tomorrow and test it when we get here," Wieters said. "I don't see it being anything too long, but I just want to be able to swing a bat, and then we can get back in there and get going.

"I bent my wrist back a little bit. We got an X-ray and everything was fine, so it looks like it's a matter of soft tissue and whenever we can play we can play. I'm hopeful for tomorrow, and if it feels good enough to play, I'll play. If not, a day or two more might be what it needs.

"I was going to slide, to tag where I thought he was going to slide and when he (Troy Tulowitzki) jumped over me, I kind of tried to turn to tag him but my glove was stuck underneath me so the wrist kind of got got bent back a bit. I really didn't feel it too bad yesterday. I guess I had a little adrenaline going, but it stiffened up a little bit as I slept through the night."

As for today's game, while Mike Wright's pitching line - he allowed three runs and seven hits in four innings - was far from great, it was clear he impressed Showalter. He went right after the toughest lineup in baseball.

"I thought he was better than last time here, and he's pitched some good games for us," Showalter said. "I like the way he attacked the strike zone. I loved the way he got back in the strike zone and kept attacking hitters. If we'd had a little better offensive performance against a real good pitcher, we might have looked at it differently."

It seemed obvious that Showalter saw some real positives for Wright to build on for both this year and next season.

"I thought it was a good test for him," he said. "It's kind of where we are with a lot of the injuries we had and some of the lack of performance that we ended up making some moves. Mike is going to help us. I like the way he went out and competed today. I've got no problems with his effort. It we had scored seven runs, we'd talk about how well he pitched today. Where he fits down the road, he's going to be a contributer in the big leagues."

Wright said this outing today was much different for him than his start here on June 19, when he gave up four runs and four walks in 1 1/3 innings.

"Yes, for sure. I had zero confidence going into that game, I have no idea why," he said. "I wasn't attacking and I tried to attack a lot more today than last time. You have no chance to get an out if you don't throw strikes. Felt like I attacked the zone well today, and that's a positive."

If Wright could have one pitch back, it might be a slider he threw that Jose Bautista hit for a homer in the first inning. He had thrown a fastball at 97 mph by Bautista one pitch before the home run.

"Yeah absolutely," he said. "But it wasn't the pitch selection, it was more the way I threw it. I should have thrown it off the plate or down, and I missed middle with it. I had been missing with my slider up to that point. That was one of the pitches I threw without 100 percent confidence."

Wright was asked why he lacked confidence in that earlier start.

"Honestly, that was the first time in my career I'd ever done that, at any level," he said. "It was a little frustrating. I was actually glad I got sent down and I could kind of recover and be a little more mentally prepared."

Meanwhile, the Orioles did very little with David Price today as he held them to three hits and one run over seven innings.

"He was throwing a lot of cutters," catcher Caleb Joseph said. "We're kind of used to the fastball, slider, changeup combo, and he was throwing quite a few guys hard cutters down and in. They looked like fastballs coming in there so they were kind of hard to lay off sometimes. He pitched a good game, and we've got to reset and come back tomorrow for a win."

Joseph echoed some of Showalter's comments about Wright, who had a crisp fastball with good life early in today's game.

"I've been catching Mike for three or four years now and he's always had an above-average fastball. And when he locates it, especially down in the zone, he induces weak contact and even swing and misses because he can elevate when he wants to with two strikes," Joseph said. "When he gets that really crisp breaking pitch down, it really gives hitters fits. I thought he could take a big thing out of this today. I think the last time he was here, the game really slipped out of his hands and he kept us in it today. So it was a big step for a young guy."