Baltimore Orioles: Wieters’ tendinitis means get Plan B ready

For openers, nine months was supposed to be the absolute minimum recovery time for the Tommy John surgery on Matt Wieters‘ arm last season. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that he came up with tendinitis yesterday after his first day as the starting catcher, going six innings in the Baltimore Orioles’ 10-9, Grapefruit League loss to Minnesota on Tuesday.

The Orioles are shutting him down for a week, which, in addition to getting him healthy, will put him further behind in finding his swing.

Get Plan B ready. At least Caleb Joseph has a year of Major League experience under him. Plan C through half the alphabet involves a choice of Ryan Lavarnway, J.P. Arencibia, Steve Clevenger, or Brian Ward.

Let’s deal with this Chris Davis craziness. A week or so ago, he made some comments about the team’s commitment to the future. Then, on Monday, he appeared to walk it back a bit in an interview with MASN’s Steve Melewski. Why was a guy who hit under .200 for most of last season, and cost his team his services by getting a 25-game suspension, opening his mouth about the team’s commitment to the future, meaning, by extension, his future?

His job this season, and he probably knows it, is to speak with his bat, and boost his numbers across the board to levels deserving of a dollar commitment from the Orioles. His comments and stats weren’t that close to being on the same page. He does have three Spring home runs, including two to left field, a hopeful indicator that he has the stroke back.

Steve Pearce also has three home runs, a pleasant reaction to the salary bump he received in the offseason. It’s nice to know it didn’t lead to complacency, but Pearce has never been that kind of player.

One of the highlights of today’s 3-2 win over Minnesota was Ubaldo Jiminez’s 4 1/3 inning performance, giving up two runs. Better every time out is how Buck Showalter described him. Okay. As Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character said in “Charlie Wilson‘s War:” “We’ll see.”

Two other strong bats in today’s game belonged to Jonathan Schoop, with a 2-run homer, and Dariel Alvarez, who tripled and scored, and whose arm is impressing a lot of teammates as a candidate for an outfield job. Schoop has been playing like a man who doesn’t want to hear any talk about Everth Cabrera‘s potential take his second base job.

Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters at bat in the second inning against the Minnesota Twins at Ed Smith Stadium Tuesday. Photo: Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

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