Showalter on Jones: "He's worth waiting on"

Orioles manager Buck Showalter still can't provide an exact date for Adam Jones' return to the lineup. He's confident, however, that Jones is getting close and the injury isn't related to the oblique.

Jones hasn't played since Wednesday night and it's not known whether he'll play Monday afternoon in Boston.

"Any time you're dealing with that area, it's such an unknown," Showalter said. "It's so tough because you don't want to test it all the time and never give it a chance (to heal). My experience is there's no consistency with that. We all know what it is if you pull it all the way. They don't really think at this point that it is an oblique. He's got one little movement at the end that he feels it just a little bit. We're trying to get that resolved.

"Talking to him and the trainers, that's close, but I am not going to push it. It is a concern because one of our best players is not playing. But it's close, we think."

The Orioles haven't dug too deeply into the math involved in backdating an assignment to the disabled list, but it's fair to question how much longer they can wait on Jones.

"As long as it takes," Showalter said.

"You look at each case differently. You know that 10 days are as far as you can backdate something. On the eleventh day he comes in and says he's good, I'm fine with that, too.

"How long has it been, about four or five? So, he's worth waiting on."

The wait is over for Hyun Soo Kim. He's in the lineup today to make his Orioles debut.

"There's so many new and firsts for him, but it is baseball," Showalter said. "I'm sure he's looking forward to getting into that element. He probably hasn't sat around and watched a lot of games, but there is something to get from that. He can kind of step back and see the game that's going on and see really good track record hitters have their times when they're not particularly good."

Showalter said he had another conversation with Kim leading up to today's game.

"We've talked about it, but you don't want to say too much," Showalter said. "There's a fine line there. Go play. Because then you ask yourself, what would you say of substance? I think he's probably got enough things going on without me jumping in there too deep, but yeah, I've talked to him every day to see where he is and see how he's feeling.

"He's got a couple things he's been working on with Scott (Coolbaugh) and Mark (Quinn). It'll be interesting to see if it frees him up a little bit today."

Kim may not have played if the Rays started left-hander Drew Smyly, who was scheduled for last night before the postponement.

"The tough one would have been if they pushed Smyly to today," Showalter said. "Then we wouldn't have been able to get done what we wanted to do this homestand with everybody. He probably won't play against (David) Price tomorrow.

"He's part of all the things you expose guys to that are new, whether it's (Joey) Rickard or him. I'm hoping he gets three or four hits today and gets to be an option for us. He's facing one of the better pitchers in the league in (Jake) Odorizzi."

Mike Wright will be the last Oriole to appear in a game when he starts Tuesday in Boston after last night's rainout.

"Get Mike back there day after tomorrow," Showalter said. "Don't want to let Mike sit around too long. Give him a chance to clear a little bit and get back out there Tuesday."

For the Rays
Logan Forsythe 2B
Logan Morrison DH
Evan Longoria 3B
Corey Dickerson LF
Steve Pearce 1B
Brad Miller SS
Steven Souza Jr. RF
Kevin Kiermaier CF
Curt Casali C

Jake Odorizzi RHP