Matt Wieters: "It was more of the body telling me to slow down"

SARASOTA, Fla. - Matt Wieters remains hopeful that he can return to catching on Wednesday after an X-ray on his elbow yesterday didn't reveal any structural damage.

Wieters is letting the elbow "rest" after being diagnosed with tendinitis following his Grapefruit League debut behind the plate on Tuesday.

Asked whether he's concerned, Wieters replied, "No. It's a matter of we put in a lot of work in the nine months of rehab and the body was just telling me, 'OK, we've put in a lot of hard work, let's just take a little bit of a breather and let it calm down a little bit.'

"It wasn't really a different feeling. It was more of just kind of fatigue that I've been feeling throughout the whole time and we just pushed through. And it wasn't a matter of hurting it, it was just a matter of it being able to be healthy and strong as quick as possible. We thought rest would be useful. We don't really see it as a setback. We just needed to slow things down a little bit instead of trying to force through everything.

"It was more of the body telling me to slow down so we don't have that setback, that was more of it than anything. We've done a lot to it in the span of nine months and nine months was always the quickest possible scenario to get to a game. And we felt comfortable when I got in a game, like we had gotten the strength up to where it needs to be. The strength is there to play in a game and now it's just a matter of letting everything settle down and let my elbow tell me when I'm ready to get back behind the plate."

Wieters could serve as the designated hitter on Sunday. He's 0-for-23 this spring, but he isn't worried about the lack of production.

"That's where I feel we'll play it by ear of how it goes," he said. "I feel like once the elbow is back to feeling really good, then the swing will come and the hitting will come. If we DH Sunday, we DH Sunday because it definitely doesn't feel sensitive to the elbow when I swing. At the same time, even though I'm 0-for-whatever, I feel just getting in the box and seeing pitches has been good this spring. It's just a matter of more than anything, just getting comfortable with the elbow and cutting lose."

Wieters said he probably won't need to go back on a throwing progression.

"We shouldn't," he said. "That's the thing. It's not a complete shutdown, because we're going to keep throwing. We're just going to try to keep any stress or anything like that off the elbow, so we're not doing real high intensity. We're going to try to keep the arm in shape to where once we're back and ready to go, the arm strength should be back where we left off."

Catching for the Orioles on Wednesday remains the goal.

"I think we're going to go week by week," he said. "We'll take a look at it on Wednesday and see how it is and make a decision after that, and hopefully it will be good by Wednesday and be able to get back going.

"Like I said, I think the hardest thing is when you come in each day, I'm trying to test it out each day and sometimes that doesn't allow you to get the most rest. I really think the best decision was being able to kind of shut down the mental side of trying to test it every day and see how it is and now we can actually let it sort of relax for a week and see where we are after that."

Wieters will continue to throw in workouts. He isn't being shut down completely.

"It probably won't be intense," he said. "It will just a matter of picking up a ball and playing catch. We got to the point where we felt strong enough throwing the ball to second base. We're not really doing rehab to get strength up now. It's a matter of keeping the arm moving and keeping the maintenance as opposed to building."

Outfielder David Lough is on the trip today to Fort Myers. He was shut down for a few days with a sore hamstring.