Pedro Álvarez expected to take his bats to Bradenton

SARASOTA, Fla. - The Orioles make another trip to Bradenton today to play the Pirates, the same short drive but with a new player serving as designated hitter.

Pedro Álvarez isn't ready to patrol right field in an exhibition game and it's certainly not going to happen on his old spring stomping grounds. Álvarez is penciling into the lineup in a more familiar role. Have bat will travel, especially when he's trying again to get caught up after signing late.

Manager Buck Showalter confirmed yesterday that Álvarez will be the DH, which he also considered for Friday morning's B game on one of the back fields at the Ed Smith Stadium complex.

The return of Mark Trumbo and the Orioles' insistence on improving their corner outfield defense seemed to eliminate Álvarez from consideration, but he stayed on the market, agreed to a minor league deal and new position, and a reunion was born.

"Well, he was one of our leading hitters last year in June, July and August," said executive vice president Dan Duquette. "He put up a .880 OPS and he had over a .500 slugging, so he can hit. We talked to him last year about the possibility of playing the outfield and Brady (Anderson) followed up with him over the winter time. And he's interested in learning a new position.

"He's not that old, where he should be a full-time DH. So we thought there's a good opportunity to work with Pedro and try to develop his skills at another positon and see if he can contribute to the ballclub."

Álvarez had 20 doubles and 22 home runs in 109 games last season. He started slow out of the gate - abbreviated spring training, new team, new league - and posted a .224 average in April and a .167 average in May with a total of three home runs. But he had a .293/.333/.621 slash line in June, a .281/.292/.531 line in July and a .297/.357/.641 line in August, with 16 home runs in that stretch.

He didn't scrape the back of the wall.

"He hit some majestic home runs for us last year," Duquette said. "He hit a couple out on Eutaw Street and showed good capability with the bat over the course of his career, particularly against right-handed pitching, and we thought that would be helpful to have in the organization.

"Now we're going to work on seeing if we can help him with a job change."

The process can't be rushed and there's no reason for the Orioles to do it. Álvarez's opt-out clause is in May, and he seems to understand that his outfield education will have to continue at Triple-A Norfolk.

"I think Pedro is interested in working on his outfield play and give it a little time," Duquette said yesterday, "and given that where it's almost the 15th of the month, we've only got a couple of weeks and it's probably going to take a little bit longer than that to get ready."

The man also needs to swing the bat, work on his timing, do what comes the most natural to him. Today is a start - his first one after returning to the Orioles.