Brian Roberts: "Things are good"

Brian Roberts will play second base and bat leadoff tonight for the Bowie Baysox, as his injury rehab assignment continues in the Eastern League and he looks to soon re-join the Orioles. Roberts will play nine innings here tonight, DH tomorrow, then play second base and all nine innings again on Wednesday. He could stay with the Baysox longer, but his schedule is not certain beyond that game just yet. Roberts does say he feels as good physically now as he has at any point this season. "We've tried to stay as low profile as possible the last month or two just because there was so much going on and you have expectations, people have expectations and we just got to the point where we needed to go as slow as possible and not have to answer those questions all the time. Things are good, things are way better than they were at the beginning of the year. I really never got to the point at the beginning of the year where I felt how I do now. It's a positive sign and I'm excited to get back out and start playing." Roberts was asked what is different from earlier in terms of his back feeling good right now. "Yeah, it doesn't hurt. Really, if anybody has ever had a back problem, you know that it just comes and when it's there, you don't feel good all day long. And when it's not there, you feel great. I feel very good right now. January 25 or whenever it was when I hurt my back in Arizona, I never felt that way. I always had some discomfort and I always had some restrictions of things that I was doing that just didn't feel good. Finally, I'm to the point where I don't really have those." Roberts said he was not certain at which point or date he could be activated with the Orioles. "Like I said earlier, I can't tell you when I'll be back. The final decision is probably not mine. If it was mine, I probably would have played today. It probably wouldn't have been smart, but I would have done it. "You know, we are going to go through these three days and see where we are at the end of Wedensday, probably. Then we'll talk to Richie Bancells and Brian Ebel and MacPhail and Juan and we'll put our heads together and see where we are." Some fans have suggested that Roberts just get surgery now and fix his back problem for good. Roberts said that was really never part of the equation. "It's not me, I didn't study medicine. It was the doctors that basically all said surgery is not really even an option. It's not something that they would do surgery on. To answer that question is pretty simple. The guys that do eight years of med school, I trust them." Check back for more with Roberts a little later.