Showalter on Hart, Ondrusek, O'Day, Wilson and more

SAN FRANCISCO - So much for a slow news day.

The Orioles recalled reliever Donnie Hart from Double-A Bowie to replace Logan Ondrusek in the bullpen and give them a much-needed left-hander as part of the bridge to closer Zach Britton.

Hart's presence is already being felt. The Giants couldn't stack their lineup with left-handers tonight.

"It's as much about Logan, too," said manager Buck Showalter. "When we first acquired Logan, we were hoping he'd be able to get some innings down below, but because of some of the contractual situation, he had to be in the big leagues first. It's kind of a roster issue, too.

"He's having a little trouble adjusting with the baseball. A lot of people forget about that with the Japanese baseball. The split was a big pitch for him and he was having trouble getting a feel for it with the baseballs. Of course, in our sport for some reason we've got different baseballs for the minor leagues than we do in the big leagues. I'm not real sure why. Does the Continental Basketball Association use a different basketball than the NBA? I wonder.

"It will be good for him to get down and take a breath and get on a real good schedule. He'll be back."

Hart is making his second stop with the Orioles. He's 3-1 with a 2.72 ERA in 40 games at Bowie and left-handers are hitting .188 against him.

"We had some options and we felt like Donnie was the best option," Showalter said. "At least try to keep some of these teams from stacking up the left-handers back-to-back-to-back-to-back like a lot of them have been doing."

Reliever Darren O'Day flew back to Baltimore and team orthopedist Dr. Michael Jacobs will examine his sore right shoulder. The Orioles are short in the bullpen this weekend unless they recall Tyler Wilson, who's on the taxi squad tonight.

"I talked to him a little bit before I talked to you after the game, but we hadn't come to full closure on it," Showalter said. "He had some posterior shoulder discomfort about halfway through his outing yesterday and we decided to go ahead and send him back to Baltimore to let Dr. Jacobs see him. That's one of the reason's Tyler's here, in case we have a need for a pitcher tomorrow.

"We're hoping it's something that will resolve itself quickly. It's yet to be seen whether they'll inject him or not. I don't know if they'll do it tomorrow. With the off day tomorrow, we probably wouldn't have pitched him today or the weekend. It was prudent to get him there. If we get some type of news from Dr. Jacobs, we don't want to get a guy across the country, so we thought it was smart to get Tyler out here."

The process was complicated.

"We had trouble getting a hold of him," Showalter said. "He was in the Outer Banks on an off day with his wife's family. The moral of the story is to take the phone with you. He had like 14 messages when he came back.

"We'll have to make a call on him the next 24 hours. It could be tough if we have to use a lot of pitchers tonight and Darren's healthy. We're looking at Tuesday.

"I feel pretty confident he would not have pitched here with what he told us yesterday. We have some hope that something could resolve itself by Tuesday or Wednesday."

O'Day's shoulder discomfort hadn't surfaced until yesterday.

"He had some real good outings since he's been back," Showalter said. "I know you don't forget that, and he's had a couple where it wasn't. Now, I don't know how forthcoming (he's been). I know Darren wanted nothing to do with going back on the DL, but he's also not going to do anything to hurt the club. He actually wanted to stay and pitch through it, but we just didn't think that was a very good idea."

O'Day flew out of San Francisco at 2 p.m. and will get back to Baltimore around midnight.

"We should have some closure on it about 1 or 2 tomorrow, which will allow us to make a decision on Tyler's situation. But it's better than trying to rush a guy out here. It's always a rush job," Showalter said.

Wilson's been much more effective in his last two starts with Triple-A Norfolk.

"He's been crisper, a little more finish on his fastball." Showalter said. "It's been good for him. We kind of knew it would reach that point at some course of the year anyway, so we had to back off him and tried to shorten him up with some of his starts down there. He's stayed around 75 pitches. He's had two days off, this would be his third, so he'd be ready to go tomorrow."

Steve Pearce took batting practice and appears to have avoided the disabled list.

"Felt good," Showalter said. "He's an option to pinch-hit tonight, maybe do some other things. I'm not going to get into that. Hopefully, be able to get him in the lineup somehow. Going to be a little tougher with the National League rules."

Left-hander Brian Duensing, on the 60-day disabled list after having cartilage chips removed from his elbow, threw a 25-pitch bullpen session today.

"That's moving along good," Showalter said.

Left-hander T.J. McFarland (knee) is still scheduled to pitch Monday at Single-A Frederick.

Hand specialist Dr. Kenneth Means will examine Joey Rickard's right thumb on Wednesday.

"It was on the 18th. They pushed it up a day, so we'll see," Showalter said. "It will be good to hear what he has to say."