With Chris Ray back this season it will be interesting to see who will take over the closer job. Last season Sherrill was a all-star caliber closer, but also put the team in many tough situations in the 9th. So far this year Ray has been looking good in spring training, and with his arm back to full strength may very well be our closer.
Even though Sherrill put himself in a lot of jams he was still able to work his way out of them. So if Ray is now our closer, Jim Johnson is our 7th inning guy where [...]

Here is a pretty good quote from a article I read when I woke up this morning.
Entering this offseason Baltimore needed to overhaul a starting rotation that last year threw just 882 innings, the lowest total in baseball. Their starters also had a collective 5.51 ERA, which was tied with the Rangers for the worst ERA by a starting staff. So maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that Baltimore opened camp with 27 pitchers on the 40 man roster. It’s like American Idol for pitchers.
From: (Click here)

Pitching was much better today, especially after the second inning. Scott Moore went 2-2 with a homer, Nolan Reimold also went deep for a 2 run homer.
Matt Albers and Chris Ray also had a very good game, putting up zeros on the board. Which was the complete opposite than the pitchers from yesterday. Overall, the pitching looked a lot more promising today only giving up 3 runs, and two of them coming from Baez. Baez didn’t make a great impression to become a starter which he wants.
Tomorrows game will be at 1:05 against the young Marlins. Wieters will not be [...]

The pitching today was just horrible, all the way 1st to the 8th inning. The most disturbing news from today’s game is Hennessey leaving the game in the 2nd inning due to injury. He said after the game that he doesn’t believe its anything to serous, that his elbow just felt stiff. Pauley also didn’t open any eyes today with his performance, and most surprisingly having trouble throwing strikes. Waters didn’t have much of a great outing either, with the only pitcher who had success was Keefer and Jim Miller. What a shocker that is.
A lot of the Orioles regulars [...]

The O’s will be taking on the Mets today at 1:00 pm. This is the first official spring training game and I expect it to be a sloppy game, especially on the offensive side. I’m sure all of us will once again keep our eye on Wieters. You can listen to the game on 105.7 the fan.
Feel free to chat about the game below.
Update: The live chat below is down this game. Thursdays spring training game will be up and running so be sure to check back.
BirdsWatcher

The O’s beat Italy today in a non-official spring training game. Matt Wieters only had two at bats and got walked both times. I was looking forward to seeing Wieters putting up big hits today, but it looks like Italy either pitched around him, or Wieters was patient at the plate. I’m a little disappointed Reimold didn’t put up better numbers going 0-2, and only reaching on a error and a walk.
The pitching was spectacular today only giving up 4 hits and no runs. Brad Bergesen had a outstanding game only giving up 1 hit and striking out 2. If [...]

The Orioles will be playing against the Italian national team tomorrow at 12:00pm. Unfortunately, the game won’t be televised or broadcasted on the radio that I know of.
Here is the projected lineup………
Christian – CF
Murphy – 2B
Moore – 3B
Salazar – 1B
Wieters – C
Brazell – DH
Montanez – RF
Reimold – LF
Turner – SS
Matusz – P
Obviously all eyes will be on Wieters this game, and all of spring training. The other players that will be watched closely are Reimold and Montanez. I’m a bit surprised they are being put so low in the lineup. Matusz will also be watched very close, we need him [...]

The backup catcher is pretty much narrowed down to Robby Hammock who played his entire career with the Diamondbacks, and a career .255 batting average.  Our other option is Chad Moeller who played with the Yankees last season. Moeller has a career batting average of .224, but is slightly better behind the plate then Hammock.
Another option that is less likely is having Wieters start off in the majors. I seriously don’t see that happening for free agency reasons unless he blows everybody away in spring training. Don’t hold your breath on this option though, McPhail has stated the entire off-season [...]

Since Felix Pie was traded to the Orioles, their has been much speculation to where Scott will be playing.  The most likely position would be DH, but he stated last week that he’d rather be in the field instead of sitting on the bench watching the other guys play half the game. Scott is a nice guy, and we all know he won’t publicly complain if he is our full time DH.
Another option for Scott would be at first base, which I don’t see happening on a regular bases. Huff said that last season he would of liked to [...]

Both Matt Wieters and Jake Arrieta, who are clients of super agent Scott Boras, confirmed that they have assets that might be affected by the civil case that has been filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission against billionaire investment tycoon Robert Allen Stanford, who is accused of fraud involving the sale of $8 billion in certificates of deposits that boasted unusually high returns.
From: Baltimore Sun (Click here)
I’m not quite sure what this means, but it will be interesting to see how it develops.  Scott Boras always seemed like a shady fellow to me. Good luck to Wieters and Arrieta [...]