Akin likely to stay in the bullpen (and other notes)

The Orioles need a starter this weekend against the Blue Jays in Buffalo and left-hander Keegan Akin no longer appears to be an option.

Manager Brandon Hyde seems to have narrowed his choices to Thomas Eshelman and Jorge López.

Akin has been a starter throughout the minors, but perhaps not while the Orioles are chasing a playoff berth.

While Hyde, in his own words, is in "win-now mode."

"For us right now, Keegan fits in our bullpen the best," Hyde said today in his Zoom conference call with the media.

"I might not even use him as a long guy. I might use him as a one-inning guy here, too. But I think that long-term, is he a rotation piece? Is he a long guy? I think that's something we will find out. But at this moment right now I'm going to try to win games and utilize Keegan the best way we can."

The Orioles are a game below .500 heading into tonight. The season is shortened and the playoff field is expanded. Getting Akin's feet wet as a major league starter isn't a priority.

"I feel like putting him in the bullpen right now, because it's such a short-sprint season and it's different than most years, we're not sacrificing development in his case," Hyde said. "He's getting a taste in the big leagues. That doesn't mean he isn't going to be a starter or long reliever down the road. We're just in a little bit of a different scenario right now where we're hovering around .500, our team has stayed competitive. And so I'm trying to win as many games as possible.

"In Keegan's case, I'm not sacrificing by pitching him either four innings out of the 'pen or giving him a starter or two innings out of the bullpen, I don't feel like I'm sacrificing his development just because this year is different anyway and he's already been built. They've done a nice job with getting him in his starter routine through summer camp and he's thrown quite a bit of innings. This is just a different year."

Hyde was going to start Pat Valaika at shortstop tonight from the moment that the Rays announced their starter, which never comes quickly from a team that likes to use openers and sort through its bullpen for candidates.

Right-hander Trevor Richards is a reverse-splits guy who holds left-handed hitters to a .239/.326/.389 slash line. Hyde wanted Valaika's bat in the lineup. But he also didn't want the infielder to sit after committing two throwing errors last night that produced two unearned runs.

Trust the numbers and a player who's been steady in the field.

"I thought that last night was just unfortunate because Val has played so solid for us all season," Hyde said. "Started off in a utility role and because of all sorts of different circumstances has gotten everyday at-bats, and that's just because of guys being down, being hurt. Iggy, all the stuff that has happened. And he's taken competitive at-bats and he's played very, very solid defensively anywhere I've put him.

"I know there's nobody that felt worse last night than Pat, just because it matters so much to him and the work that he does put in. Whether he made the errors or not, he was going to be in there today."

José Iglesias is eligible to come off the injured list today, but it won't happen until later in the week. He worked out today at Tropicana Field - taking ground balls, hitting and running the bases to test his left quadriceps muscle.

"He's very close. I think that's going to be a tomorrow-or-the-next-day decision if he responds well to the work he put in today," Hyde said.

"It hurts to not have Iglesias in the lineup. I think you see the kind of club we are when he's in the lineup and when he's not in the lineup, and it's just because there's a pro there taking an at-bat in the middle of the order. And he's such a great presence and voice for the younger players, too."

Pedro Severino remains out of the lineup and is day-to-day with tightness in his right hip.

"He is much improved today," Hyde said. "We're hoping here in the next day or two to have him in there. So to get him and Iglesias back in the lineup, that's a big deal for us and that's important just because we're a lot deeper with both of those guys taking at-bats in our lineup. So we're hoping to have both of those guys real shortly."

Hyde found out this afternoon about the Milwaukee Bucks' refusal to take the court for tonight's NBA playoff game against the Orlando Magic as an unprecedented protest of police in Wisconsin shooting Jacob Blake in the back. All three games have been postponed.

Blake, who is African-American, was shot multiple times Sunday in Kenosha as he tried to enter his SUV with his three children seated inside, and the video footage taken from across the street went viral. Seven shots are heard.

"I did hear about it on my walk here from my office to the press conference," Hyde said. "It's a difficult world we're living in right now. I think that we talk to our players a lot about what's happening. We represent it with the T-shirts that we wear through batting practice a lot of the time.

"Those were issues that we talked a lot about while we were home on Zoom meetings during the pandemic as well as during summer camp, and those conversations still continue. I'm going to support all of our players. I'm going to support all our players in freely thinking how they want to feel.

"These are important topics that our country is going through right now. I thought that listening to Doc Rivers this morning, that was incredibly powerful. It's a tough time. It's a tough time."