masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgSARASOTA, Fla. – Ubaldo Jimenez makes his third spring start today for the Orioles. He really could use a favorable line.
Results matter for Jimenez. He’s competing for a spot in the rotation and can’t continue to run up high pitch counts and raise more doubts about his ability to contribute in 2015. Simply getting ready for the season isn’t enough.
Jimenez allowed six runs (five earned) in 1 1/3 innings against the Tigers in Lakeland, and one run in two innings against the Twins in Fort…

SARASOTA, Fla. – Ubaldo Jimenez makes his third spring start today for the Orioles. He really could use a favorable line.

Results matter for Jimenez. He’s competing for a spot in the rotation and can’t continue to run up high pitch counts and raise more doubts about his ability to contribute in 2015. Simply getting ready for the season isn’t enough.

Jimenez allowed six runs (five earned) in 1 1/3 innings against the Tigers in Lakeland, and one run in two innings against the Twins in Fort Myers. The box score indicates that Jimenez was much better in his second outing, but he walked three batters and constantly fell behind in the count.

Though he struck out the side in the second inning, he’s still throwing too many pitches. He’s still trying to find a comfort zone and the strike zone with his new delivery.

My colleague, Steve Melewski, will be in Dunedin today for Jimenez’s start while I stay back in camp. I’m also due for a haircut, which won’t show up in the box score.

Sifting through my notebook, I found an interview with catcher J.P. Arencibia regarding Rule 5 pitcher Jason Garcia.

“He’s got an electric arm,” Arencibia said. “There’s no doubt his stuff plays in the big leagues. It’s just being able to be consistent with it. That’s it. You know how it is. Guys that are high velo guys, they’re going to always been good, but it’s the secondary stuff that makes them better.

“It’s fastball command. In the big leagues, it doesn’t matter if you throw 98 (mph). If you’re throwing it in the middle of the plate, guys can hit it. I think that’s the biggest difference is being able to make sure you can command that fastball and you can throw your secondary pitches for strikes. If guys can eliminate secondary pitches and just key on fastballs, it’s a little easier hitting than if somebody is like, ‘Man, this guy can throw different pitches for strikes and he throws mid-to-high 90s.’ Makes is real tough. But he’s got an unbelievable arm and he seems like a great kid. Real quiet, works hard, so those things obviously help you, too.”

steve-clevenger_mask.pngCatcher Steve Clevenger said he still doesn’t have a feel for whether he’s gained an edge in the competition for the backup job.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s still early in camp. They don’t really tell us much, just to go out and play. That’s kind of what I’m concentrating on is working on my defense and try to prove that I’m going to be pretty good behind the plate.”

Clevenger had concerns over the winter about the Orioles putting five catchers on the 40-man roster, and he traveled to Lakeland for the exhibition opener as the backup to Arencibia, a non-roster player. He backed up Arencibia again yesterday and had an RBI grounder.

“I wanted to start the opener, but you can’t really look into those things,” Clevenger said earlier this week. “They make a schedule based on the whole entire spring and not just the first game. That’s kind of what they did, so you really can’t look into too many things going into that.

“I’m just going to go out there and play and just do what I can do. They haven’t really told us much about who’s going to make the team or anything like that. I’m just going to go out and play and it’s going to take care of itself at the end of spring.”

The Orioles reassigned catcher Brian Ward to minor league camp, eliminating one candidate, but Clevenger didn’t read too much into it.

“Not really,” he said. “I don’t look at it that way because we’ve still got J.P. and Ryan (Lavarnway) is still in camp and obviously Caleb (Joseph), and they’re all pretty good capable catchers who can catch at the big league level. It’s going to be a competition every day and a grind every day.

“We get along very well as a core, as a group and we’re just going to continue to go out there and play and be competitive.”

It was Hunter Harvey’s turn to be assigned homework this spring. He’s only 20 years old. He’s not that far removed from school, so he seemed like the appropriate choice.

Manager Buck Showalter instructed Harvey to do a report on Hall of Famer Jim Palmer’s book, “Jim Palmer’s Way to Fitness,” which was published in 1985. I’ll let the former first-round pick explain the rest.

“Just a random thing, since I’m the youngest guy in camp,” he said. “They started talking about the last person who was in high school and then he ended up giving me the book and saying, ‘Do a report.’

“They just had me do like a little report and they wanted me to dress like him and stuff, so I went and bought some extra-small girl shorts that looked like a thong, pretty much. I wore those and presented it in that. It went pretty good.”

I’ve heard that Harvey, listed last season at 6 foot 3 and 175 lbs., also wore sandals. That’s it. Marinate in that image for a while.

“The book didn’t have any of his stats,” Harvey continued. “He was just telling you how to stretch and stuff like that, how to shave and all that. Everybody thought it was kind of a joke. That’s kind of how the Powerpoint went.”

Yes, Harvey did a Powerpoint presentation that brought down the house.

Word got back to Palmer, who was in Jupiter yesterday and sought out Harvey on the field during the pregame stretch.

“It was fun,” Harvey said. “It was good. I demonstrated some stretches and stuff. They laughed pretty hard. It turned out pretty good.”