Hammel on injury

Orioles pitcher Jason Hammel met with reporters in the home dugout during batting practice. Here's a sampling: "It started in spring training. I've been dealing with it all year," he said. "It's not really a pain thing. It's more of an uncomfortable thing. Hopefully tomorrow, the MRI will tell me something. When something doesn't hurt, it's confusing. When you feel all right to a certain extent and then things change as you get a little deeper into your outing. "Very disappointing. I figured I could pitch through it. As of right now, it's really not what's best for this team. I haven't been pitching to my capability and it's really not worth going out there and further injuring myself. We got Bud (Norris) in here now to further help out and with all the off days coming up, maybe I miss one or two starts and hopefully get this thing under control. "It's definitely affected me 100 percent. When you don't feel like you get extension, it's hard to execute your pitch, because you have to stay on top of the ball, and if you can't stay on top of the ball it's going to do different things. You're not going to be consistent with it. I don't like making excuses and I most certainly don't like the DL, so hopefully this will be a quick fix and we can push it behind us." Hammel isn't sure whether pitching with a sore knee last year contributed to the arm soreness. "Yes and no," he said. "I'm hoping the MRI comes back tomorrow and not link the two together. That would really be disappointing, because then the pitching on my knee last year will not be worth it. But it's one thing to pitch through something and trying to be a hero and it's another to step aside and let somebody else fill in for a bit and come back and offer what you know you can offer, rather than be at 60-75 percent." Hammel didn't know he was headed to the DL until arriving at the ballpark today. "Honestly, I was surprised when Buck called me in and said,' Hey, let's talk,'" Hammel said. "After my last start I told the trainers that my elbow was really bothering me and that's frustrating. I'm assuming they told Buck. It is what it is. "Honestly, until the MRI comes back I don't know how to describe it other than that it's tight. Sometimes it feels like it grabs when I throw. It's not like a pinch, but I think tightness the one thing we can label it as. It's not allowing me to fully extend when I pitch."