Tillman on his shoulder, Ondrusek released, B game lineup

SARASOTA, Fla. - Orioles pitcher Chris Tillman is waiting to find out when he's cleared to resume his shoulder exercises and finally get back on the mound.

Tillman said his shoulder felt much better before he received a cortisone injection, but he heeded the advice of the medical staff.

"Just kind of felt like everyone was recommending it," he said. "Even the two or three days before the injection I felt much, much better.

"Part of the shot is it buys you time to take off, so do the shot and I think take five, six, seven days off. Obviously, we're going to do exercises. It's not like I'm sitting around not doing anything for that amount of time. When we start exercises, probably in the next two or three days would be my guess and then kind of get a feel from there for where we're at.

"As of right now, it's feeling pretty good. I feel like I could do it right now, but it's something I want to do. I want to do it right."

Which requires a lot of patience from the staff ace.

"I wasn't necessarily going to do it or not going to do it," he said. "I had a lot of people talking to me about it trying to say, 'Why aren't you going to do it? What's going on here, blah blah blah, this and that.' So I decided, you know what, it might not be the worst thing, because realistically you're supposed to take 10 days after the shot before you really do anything. So does it buy you time? Yes, but sometimes it might be too long for the player, sometimes it's too short. You never know. So I think we have our time to take to get it right and make sure the fire is put out."

Tillman felt more discomfort in his shoulder while warming up before Sunday's bullpen session. The decision was made to shut him down again, and eventually, to give him the injection.

Tillman had finished two previous sessions.

"The ones completed before, I was feeling fine," he said. "I felt completely fine and then when I went to warm up for that bullpen, that didn't happen. I just didn't comfortable.

"If we're sitting here in June or July, I'm probably pitching. At the same time, we're talking spring training here. It's not worth it to me."

Tillman said he won't have to return to square one in his preparation, but a few steps back are likely.

"I don't think I'll have to start completely over and if it was up to me I think I'd start right where I left off," he said. "Most of that stuff isn't up to me. There's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.

"Exercise-wise, I feel like I'm right where I need to be. I did them up to five minutes before I got the shot, to be honest with you, and then as far as throwing, I might take it one or two steps backward to go forward, which is fine by me."

Tillman's streak of opening day starts ends at three and he's not expected to be ready on April 15 when the Orioles need a fifth starter.

Asked whether he's resigned to not pitching for the first few weeks of the season, Tillman replied, "Yeah. I guess. I just don't see that happening.

"The way the throwing was going up until that one day was perfect. I guess you really never know. The first day I go out and play catch and hopefully get on the mound and it feels as good as it did before that one day, then I wouldn't have taken all that long."

Meanwhile, the Orioles released reliever Logan Ondrusek, per the Major League Baseball transactions wire. Ondrusek was shut down with pain in his right elbow.

By releasing Ondrusek now, the Orioles won't have to pay his full salary of $650,000.

Here's the Orioles' B game lineup against the Pirates, which includes three designated hitters and Pedro Álvarez as the right fielder:

J.J. Hardy DH
Chris Davis DH
Mark Trumbo DH
Pedro Alvarez RF
Austin Wynns C
D.J. Stewart LF
Cedric Mullins CF
Aderlin Rodriguez 1B
Alex Castellanos 3B
Sean Coyle 2B
Adrian Marin SS

Mike Wright RHP