masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgOrioles first baseman Chris Davis is flying into Baltimore tonight and will take his physical Wednesday and Thursday after agreeing to a seven-year, $161 million contract.
With snow in the forecast this weekend, the Orioles are hoping to hold a press conference Thursday or early Friday.
“That would be ideal,” said executive vice president Dan Duquette.
Orioles manager Buck Showalter is in Florida and said he’s looking forward to getting back to Baltimore for the press conference.
“If you…

Orioles first baseman Chris Davis is flying into Baltimore tonight and will take his physical Wednesday and Thursday after agreeing to a seven-year, $161 million contract.

With snow in the forecast this weekend, the Orioles are hoping to hold a press conference Thursday or early Friday.

“That would be ideal,” said executive vice president Dan Duquette.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter is in Florida and said he’s looking forward to getting back to Baltimore for the press conference.

showalter-looking-in-black-sidebar.jpg“If you had told me at the end of the year that we were going to end up with Matt Wieters and of course Chris back, I’d have been, not surprised, but I would have been happy about that. Not to mention Darren O’Day,” Showalter said earlier today on “The Mid-Atlantic Sports Report” on MASN.

“The support that we’ve gotten has been great, and now it’s about the business of trying to finish out this roster and try to compete with clubs that are making some of the same improvements that we are.

“We didn’t have Jonathan Schoop a whole lot last year, we didn’t have Matt Wieters a whole lot last year. Chris missed some time and of course J.J. Hardy missed a lot of time. We’ve got to make our pitchers revert back to the form they had in ’14. We know it’s there. And Dan and I talk every day. There are a lot of things going on right now and we’ll continue to try to improve the club, but my focus, like we had the minicamp down in Sarasota, is making what we have better.”

Hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh has been working with Davis in Dallas throughout the free agent process that ended over the weekend with the first baseman agreeing to terms.

“They have a great relationship,” Showalter said. “I think Chris knows who he is. There’s ways to improve. He knows that. He didn’t like striking out 200 times and he’s planning on not doing that this year. I like how the walk totals have gone up. He wants to have that type of year where he doesn’t kind of disappear for a little while. But we’ve got to do as good a job as possible of putting guys on base in front of him.

“I just like the way he cares about his weaknesses. That’s where he stays diligent. He works hard on his defense, he wants to score from second on a single and first on a double, and he can play right field and say, ‘Hey, fine, let’s go.’ That’s what his teammates are talking about.”

Showalter also indicated that Mark Trumbo will mostly serve as the designated hitter, but also will get starts at first base to stay engaged defensively.