Nuño on demotion and Hart on return (O's lead 6-5)

In case anyone missed the update earlier today, the Orioles selected outfielder Craig Gentry's contract from Triple-A Norfolk and optioned first baseman/outfielder David Washington to the Tides.

Closer Zach Britton was transferred to the 60-day disabled list to open a spot for Gentry on the 40-man roster. Britton can come back July 4, so the move doesn't impact his schedule. Otherwise, the Orioles would have taken a different route.

The Orioles optioned left-hander Vidal Nuño earlier in the day, which was anticipated after he gave up another home run last night, his seventh in 14 2/3 innings to go with his 10.43 ERA and 2.250 WHIP.

The only drama now is whether Nuño reports to the Tides. An MRI on his oblique came back clean, but he stated that it's sore and also noted how he pitched this season with soreness in his knee and hip.

Asked whether he would treat his demotion as an injury rehab, Nuño replied, "I've got to talk to my agent. I have no clue what I've got to do. I just know that right now what I've got to do is get this healthy."

"It's been the whole year off and on, just little knick-knacks and little injuries here and there," Nuño added. "Not injuries, but knick-knacks. Now it's my oblique and stuff like that. The MRI came out clean, so that's a good thing. But it's something that's not feeling right. But it's just another day where I've got to figure out what I've got to do and try to get this healthy and pitch my way back here.

"It was my hip. It doesn't let me follow through. And then it was my knee. And now it's this oblique. I've got to take a step back and get this stuff healthy again and I'll be back here. It's all a matter of time and production."

Nuño is going through a frustrating stretch, though the feeling extends to the team trying to get outs from its bullpen in the middle and late innings.

"It's baseball," he said. "Just trying to strive to be the best and try to get people out and little knick-knacks here and there don't (let) me do the best that I'm capable of doing right now, so I have to take a step back."

Manager Buck Showalter confirmed that the MRI didn't reveal any damage to the oblique area. The club wasn't aware of the other issues until Showalter met with Nuño this afternoon.

"He brought up today that he's had some nagging things," Showalter said, "but nothing that kept him from pitching well down in Norfolk, which he did. Especially his last three or four outings. That's why we brought him up when we brought him up. The other team did well against him up here.

"Just doing what the doctors said the next step is. I'm sure if he feels differently ... There's a lot of things that may not show up on tests. But we weren't aware of anything else.

"It's frustrating for him because he said he's had some nagging things. Nothing that has kept him from pitching. That's true for a lot of pitchers. They pitch through a lot of things."

Left-hander Donnie Hart returned to Baltimore after the Orioles optioned him for a second time. He didn't allow a run in four outings with the Tides after going 1-0 with a 4.32 and 1.620 WHIP in 23 appearances with the Orioles.

"You can look at it two ways,'' he said. "You can go down there and feel sorry for yourself or you can go down there and try to get better. I wanted to go down there and work on what I needed to work on and I think I did a pretty decent job of that. Hopefully, it works out."

Hart allowed only one run in 22 games last summer and the Orioles are trying to get him back in form.

"Lack of command, fastballs in and out for the most part,'' he said. "The slider was always there, but you get guys choosing one pitch on you you're never going to have success. I was bitten early on with a lot of dink hits and so on, but you can make excuses all you want, but guys are getting hits and runs are scoring.

"Not having command of the fastball was probably the biggest thing early on, and if you don't have that you can't really go off anything else. I got back to some things I was doing last year and was really good at timing-wise and my mechanics and stuff like that. That was one of the things that Griff (Mike Griffin) and I really worked on hard before games, and then we would go back and look after games and make sure I'm doing it. It worked out. It was good."

Hart made the jump last season from Double-A to the majors. He never pitched at Triple-A until this year.

"You have a lot of guys with more big league experience in Triple-A than you do in Double-A," he said. "You've got guys, like, I faced Brendan Ryan my first time down there this year. I never faced him in the big leagues, but I've been watching the guy play and he had a pretty good career in the big leagues. And you've got other guys that are really good talented young players that have big league service and they're trying to get back up as well.

"In that sense, yeah, it's different, but then again, it's baseball. You're trying to get three outs before they score a run, but competition-wise, I think it's a little tougher than Double-A."

Update: Edwin Encarnacion hit a two-run homer off Chris Tillman in the first inning, the ball landing in the second deck, to give the Indians a 2-0 lead. Tillman threw 34 pitches. He walked two batters and threw a wild pitch.

Encarnacion is the second player this season to homer into the second deck, joining Manny Machado on June 2 versus the Red Sox. It's happened four times at Camden Yards.

Update II: Machado homered in the bottom of the first, his 14th, to reduce the lead to 2-1.

Update III: Jonathan Schoop hit his 14th home run with one out in the second inning to tie the game 2-2.

Update IV: Tillman walked Bradley Zimmer with two outs in the fourth after getting ahead 0-2 and surrendered a run-scoring single to Austin Jackson and two-run double to Francisco Lindor to give Cleveland a 5-2 lead.

Update V: Machado hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning to tie the game 5-5. Machado has 10 career multi-homer games.

Rubén Tejada and Seth Smith singled with one out before Machado stepped to the plate and delivered his 15th home run of the season to give him the team lead.

Update VI: One-out doubles by Machado and Adam Jones in the seventh inning gave the Orioles a 6-5 lead. Machado has four hits.