Nolan Reimold updates his status

Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold has been on the disabled list since May 4 (retroactive to May 1) with a herniated disk in his cervical spine. He is eligible to come off the DL on May 16 and will likely play in some minor league games before his return to the active roster. "Right now, I feel alright," Reimold said this afternoon. "As far as all this goes, the top of my forearm is still numb and my thumb is numb. Other than that, just some aches in the shoulder area. I took a dosepak and got some relief. There is always the next step so we'll see what that is." If has been kind of an on-again, off-again issue for Reimold this year and he hopes that this DL stint can resolve the issue once and for all. Was he surprised that it all flared up again and he had to go on the DL? "I wasn't surprised because it never really went away the whole way," he said. "We got it under control, it didn't really affect my swing or anything like that. But I wasn't really surprised it flared up again. I was just hoping that it would hold off until it went the whole way away. I wasn't going to sit around forever waiting for it. It may have been a little bit of a risk I guess I took. I was able to play and I wanted to play, so I went out there and it got set back a little bit." Reimold is batting .313 with five homers, 10 RBIs and an OPS of .960 in 16 games. He last played on April 30 at New York. Is he confident he will return as soon as he is eligible to come off the DL? "I think, yeah, it should be around that time," Reimold said. "I don't know for certain. It stinks just sitting around doing nothing, it's been five or six days now. That part is frustrating. Once these symptoms clear out I'll start working out, get back into baseball shape and be ready to go." What treatment is he undergoing right now? "There is nothing really that you can do to treat it," he said. "Just finished up the dosepak and that helped out. After that, I take Motrin two times a day. Other than doing nothing (else), the next step would be to get an epidural and get that done and that would get me back sooner rather than just waiting around and have this be weeks. Epidural would be the quickest path back. That could provide relief in a day or two." Reimold said he does expect to go on a minor league injury rehab assignment before rejoining the Orioles. "Yeah, that is what he (manager Buck Showalter) said. So that is what I'll be expecting. Can't hurt to get some at-bats in. It's a day-by-day thing right now," Reimold said.