Buck Showalter on decision to option Eddie Gamboa

JUPITER, Fla. - Orioles manager Buck Showalter spent last night in a hotel near Roger Dean Stadium, avoiding the three-hour drive this morning. That's a veteran move.

Showalter is hoping that Kevin Gausman can go three or four innings in Sunday's B game at Ed Smith Stadium. It's scheduled for seven innings.

The next round of cuts aren't expected before Saturday. The Orioles optioned knuckleballer Eddie Gamboa to Triple-A Norfolk following yesterday's 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays.

"He needs to keep the ball in his hand," Showalter said. "He missed two or three days. He's not going to make the club out of spring training.

"This is his third year with the knuckleball basically and I think he's finally accepted that he's got to throw this knuckleball. He had a lot of success doing it that way the last month or two of the season. He's actually, the two I've had, he's actually a little ahead of R.A. (Dickey). Other knuckleballers have told him sometimes it's four to five years to really get a feel for it.

"I'm telling him that we're going to run down this course with him and see where it takes us. He's going to want to be one of the 10 homegrown pitchers that we're going to have in the rotation in Triple-A and Double-A.

"I was telling him yesterday, I went through this process with two or three of them and he's ahead of them, believe it or not. His knuckleball is quality, he's athletic, he has all the attributes to do it. Whether he can do it or not is just keeping it in his hand and keep throwing it. And I want him to know that we, as an organization, first time there's a couple bad outings, we're not going to throw our hands up in the air. He's gotten a little better each year with it, so it will be interesting to see whether he can carry over what he was doing last year when he was 80-85 percent."

Challenged by Showalter yesterday to list every pitch that he can throw, Gamboa came up with five of them. Showalter immediately did some editing.

"I said, 'OK, three pitches. Fastball, knuckleball and something you can get over behind in the count that would take them off the sweet part of the bat,' " Showalter said. "Why would you have a changeup and a knuckleball? I think he's going to eliminate down to two or three pitches. And I think he's on board. We had to get to the point where it was his idea. It's his career, and he's had success. He did well in Mexico. He's had success. I understand."

Gamboa gave up a run-scoring triple and three run homer against the Tigers in Lakeland because he kept relying on his upper-80s fastball when behind in the count. He didn't want to issue the walk.

"I'd rather him walk him than hit it where the grass doesn't grow," said Showalter, who also managed knuckleballer Russ Springer in Arizona.

"I think the commitment's there now. He's going to have a little cutter, fastball and a knuckleball.

"We may look back a few years from now and think about how that outing in Lakeland may have been the last thing he needed to experience."

Here are a couple of pictures from Jupiter: