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Reliever Vinny Nittoli is coming back to the Orioles organization.
Nittoli, 34, signed a minor league deal and is reporting to Triple-A Norfolk after opting out of his contract with the Brewers last week.
Nittoli posted a 3.86 ERA in 27 games with Triple-A Nashville, striking out 37 batters in 28 innings. He tossed four scoreless innings with the Orioles over two games in 2024.
Left-handed reliever Keegan Akin began his injury rehab assignment today in the Florida Complex League and tossed a scoreless first inning against the FCL Rays with one hit and two strikeouts.
Akin is on the injured list retractive to July 1 with left shoulder inflammation. He’s appeared in 39 games with the Orioles and posted a 3.32 ERA and 1.421 WHIP in 38 innings. He’s started three times as an opener.
TAMPA – Tony Mansolino is willing to talk about the weather and how miserably hot it gets in Florida. He loves to share stories about his two young sons, learning the sport through his father, Doug, and pretty much any topic that isn’t a guarded club secret. But just like his predecessor, Mansolino knows that most of the media sessions begin with injury and rehab updates.
There’s no escaping it – just like the heat.
The interim manager was happy to pass along the latest positive report on Kyle Bradish, who is following his two innings of live batting practice over the weekend with his first rehab start Thursday at High-A Aberdeen.
Bradish made his last Orioles appearance on June 14, 2024 against the Phillies, allowing two runs in five innings and coming out after only 74 pitches. The red flag was raised and flapped in the breeze. A pitcher who received a platelet-rich plasma injection in January after his diagnosis of an ulnar collateral ligament sprain was on borrowed time, and the clock struck 12 on a Baltimore evening.
We’ll assume that it was muggy.
TAMPA – The Orioles took a quick lead again this afternoon with Jackson Holliday’s leadoff home run. They built on it in the third inning with Alex Jackson’s first homer since last July. They keep playing to win, as reflected by the lineups, but there’s no escaping the reality of their situation.
Today’s 5-3 victory over the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field featured a 2-hour, 36-minute rain delay – longest of the season - prevented a sweep and left the Orioles 10 games below .500 at 44-54. They’re playing four this week in Cleveland before returning home. And each day that passes makes them wonder how much the clubhouse will change.
If it’s a distraction, the Orioles pushed it aside today. They led 4-0 by the third on Henderson’s 109.2 mph, two-run double off Ryan Pepiot. The only losses came later in the inning when plate umpire James Hoye ejected Ramón Laureano and interim manager Tony Mansolino.
Laureano thought he checked his swing on a strikeout, flung his helmet and protective padding at home plate and was tossed. Mansolino picked up the argument after Laureano walked away and received his first career major league ejection.
Ramón Urias entered the game at first base and Ryan O’Hearn moved to right field.
TAMPA – Kyle Bradish will begin his injury rehab assignment Thursday with High-A Aberdeen, staying on track for a second-half return to the Orioles’ rotation.
Bradish had two ups yesterday during live batting practice in Sarasota.
Adley Rutschman (oblique) will start his rehab assignment Tuesday with Triple-A Norfolk. He’s getting at-bats today against Tyler Wells, who’s nearing his own assignment.
First baseman Ryan Mountcastle (hamstring) will join Rutschman later in the week.
Left-hander Cade Povich (hip) starts Thursday or Friday at Norfolk.
TAMPA – Tony Mansolino is new to this whole managing thing, carrying his interim tag into every major league ballpark and a few of the minor league fill-ins, but he’s a quick study and knows that he can’t control the narrative.
The media’s gonna media.
The pressure of the approaching trade deadline could be impacting the Orioles, who are predicted by some outlets to be the most active team with a bundle of pending free agents on the table and hopes of contending fading like old jeans.
Or it isn’t. The blame might fall instead to deficiencies in the rotation, a slumping offense and an injury bug that could devour an entire city. The Orioles had 25 different players on the injured list in the first half to tie the White Sox for most in the majors. The Red Sox, Dodgers and Mets were next with 22, which is an important note because they seemed to cope better than the others.
“I’m an optimist in every which way, so I’ve never gravitated toward the feel sorry for me or everything’s terrible or everything’s negative,” Mansolino said. “I tend to look at the opportunity that somebody else gets and look at the possibility of doing great.
TAMPA – The Orioles got on a serious draft signing roll today, with two more players entering the organization.
The club reached agreements with left-hander Joseph Dzierwa, a second-rounder out of Michigan State, and right-hander JT Quinn, a Competitive Balance B Round selection out of Georgia.
Five of the Orioles’ first six picks have signed professional contracts.
Catcher Caden Bodine, the 30th-overall pick out of Coastal Carolina, will report to the Sarasota complex on Sunday and meet up with 19th-overall selection Ike Irish, a catcher/outfielder from Auburn.
Bodine, who began switch-hitting when he was 4 years old, wasn’t fazed by the Orioles taking another catcher before him.
TAMPA – Zach Eflin is nearing a return to the Orioles’ rotation, perhaps next week in Cleveland.
Eflin tossed four innings yesterday in the Florida Complex League, allowing five unearned runs in the fourth. He threw 68 pitches, 40 for strikes, and said he felt “great” and “ready to go.”
The Orioles put Eflin on the 15-day injured list retroactive to June 29 with lower back discomfort and he's itching to rejoin the club.
“I’ve been eager,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been ready. More so just to prove I can kind of do it yesterday. Back feels great.”
Eflin went on the IL earlier this season with a low-grade lat strain. He said the back discomfort has “kind of popped up the past couple years, like once a year, and typically takes like seven days to clear up and I’m pretty much good to go after that."
TAMPA - The Orioles signed another first-day draft pick today, Arkansas shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, the 31st-overall selection.
Aloy receives the full slot value of $3,042,800, as reported by MLB.com’s Jim Callis.
The club already inked catchers Ike Irish and Caden Bodine, the 19th and 30th selections. The deadline for signings is July 28 at 5 p.m.
Aloy, 21, fell to the Orioles and they pounced. A native of Hawaii, he won the Golden Spikes and Southeastern Conference Player of the Year awards this year by slashing .350/.434/.673 with 19 doubles, two triples, 21 home runs, 68 RBIs and 81 runs scored.
In three seasons, Aloy hit .332/.406/.609 with 43 doubles, seven triples, 49 homers and 170 RBIs in 181 games.
TAMPA – Coby Mayo remembers the conversation he had last year with outfielder Kyle Stowers and the question posed to his friend.
“I asked him, ‘Would you rather be in the big leagues and not playing much or be down in Triple-A and playing every day,” Mayo recalled, “and he’s like, ‘I think being in the big leagues is very valuable, even if you’re not playing, just learning.’ Being able to watch the game and being around the coaches.”
The Orioles must agree because they’re carrying Mayo on the roster and sitting him much more than he plays.
Last night’s start against the Rays was only his third in the last 12 games. An 11-for-36 stretch over 11 games to finish June didn’t create a regular spot for him in the lineup.
Stowers made his first All-Star team with the Marlins and hit his 20th and 21st home runs last night, including a walk-off, to give him five blasts in his last two games.
TAMPA – Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino gathered his players today for a post-break meeting, a “good talk” with details that he wanted to keep private.
“I’m not gonna tell you the message, but it was multiple things,” he said this afternoon during his media scrum inside the visiting dugout at steamy George M. Steinbrenner Field. “Just a lot of the things kind of surrounding us, the challenges that kind of lay ahead, and also the opportunities that lay ahead.”
Mansolino wants his team to block out the distractions, including trade deadline talk, and to keep pushing. Play up to the level of talent. Treat the second half like a fresh start.
The Rays took all of the air out of an uplifting speech, busting it like a balloon.
Junior Caminero hit a three-run homer off Charlie Morton in the bottom of the first inning, Danny Jansen followed with a solo shot in the second, and the Orioles saw the game go from bad to worse in an 11-1 loss before an announced sellout crowd of 10,046.
TAMPA – The chances of Grayson Rodriguez facing batters in 2025 just took another hit.
Rodriguez is shut down again for an indefinite period due to the same elbow soreness that kept him from pitching in spring training after a March 5 game against the Twins in Fort Myers.
The injury report lists Rodriguez with right elbow inflammation but he initially was sidelined with a strained lat that forced the cancellation of an April 17 bullpen session. Rodriguez spoke earlier of triceps tendinitis.
Rodriguez had advanced to throwing breaking balls in his bullpen sessions but clearly was behind other pitchers on the IL, including Kyle Bradish, who’s recovered from reconstructive elbow surgery last June and will log two innings Saturday against live hitters in Sarasota before beginning a rehab assignment.
“We had to pull back a little bit on Grayson,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “There’s a little bit of elbow discomfort from the issue he had in spring training, same spot, so we’re gonna kind of pull back, we’re gonna reevaluate and we’ll probably have more information on that in the next week or so.”
TAMPA – The Orioles filled the opening on their 26-man roster by signing reliever Corbin Martin to a one-year major league contract.
Martin was designated for assignment Sunday before the Orioles knew that reliever Scott Blewett would go on the injured list with right elbow discomfort. Martin declined an outright assignment, became a free agent and signed a new contract.
The 40-man roster is full.
Zach Eflin’s rehab assignment was transferred to the Florida Complex League and he could be reinstated from the injured list if he gets through it without any setbacks.
Catcher Chadwick Tromp begins his rehab assignment at Class A Delmarva.
TAMPA – Less than a week after drafting catcher/outfielder Ike Irish in the first round, the Orioles got his signature on a contract.
Irish, 21, signed earlier today in Baltimore after passing his physical. The Orioles made him the 19th overall pick Sunday night out of Auburn University.
Irish, a left-handed hitter and Michigan-native climbed draft boards after slashing .364/.469/.710 with 13 doubles, two triples, 19 home runs, 58 RBIs, 33 walks, 37 strikeouts and 11 steals in 12 attempts over 55 games this season. In three college seasons, he slashed .350/.435/.625 with 48 doubles, five triples, 39 homers and 167 RBIs in 160 games.
Adding to the Irish intrigue is how he batted .325/.438/.433 last summer in the Cape Code League.
“First and foremost, we love his bat,” vice president of player development and domestic scouting Matt Blood said late Sunday night. “He’s a very polished bat, both on, really on all aspects of how you would want a hitter to be. Contact, power, swing decisions. Just really, really exciting hitter. He has the ability to catch, he has the ability to play corner outfield, he has the ability to play some first base, and we’re pretty big on defensive versatilities, so we’ll probably explore all those options.”
Release the pause button. The Orioles are set to resume their season following the All-Star break, beginning a three-game series tonight against the Rays in Tampa.
The Orioles are 22-16 since the start of June after going 21-36 beforehand, which sounds like momentum. But they closed the first half with back-to-back home losses to the Marlins and have split their last 20 games, leaving them nine below .500 at 43-52 and 7 ½ behind for the last Wild Card.
This isn’t the way to convince the front office that buying makes more sense than selling.
Get ready for more reports that the Orioles are “listening” to offers, which signals that the trade deadline is fast approaching. As I always ask, what exactly is the alternative? Executives call other executives, who listen and can exercise their right to say “no.” It doesn’t indicate progress in trade talks or a willingness to part with a particular player. It’s just the usual conversations intended to gauge whether there might be room to negotiate.
It would be bigger news if contenders weren’t checking whether the Orioles might part with Félix Bautista. They’ve got nothing to lose by asking. And I wouldn’t expect more than a couple of seconds to pass while considering the idea dealing a dominant closer who's getting back into All-Star form and remains under team control through 2027.
What started as an innocent car ride home became a deep dive into the Orioles’ roster.
Interim manager Tony Mansolino needed a lift last Thursday with family in town, and new special advisor John Mabry provided taxi service. Mansolino used the one-on-one time with a respected former major league player and coach to discuss the team and everything happening around it.
“What do you think about all this?” Mansolino asked.
And then came his answer –without pause and aimed at the one player who usually gets lost in the crowd.
“Right away, it’s Jordan Westburg,” Mansolino recalled. “He’s like, ‘That’s the guy that nobody talks about. That’s the piece.’”
The All-Star break doesn’t provide much rest for those of us covering the draft, tracking Ryan O’Hearn and emptying a mailbag.
The last pick in the draft was announced Monday evening. Major League Baseball did something right, getting rid of Day 3. O’Hearn was the designated hitter for the American League, and as I told him would happen, I tuned out the second after he came out.
That’s the luxury of “covering” it from home. I was in Texas last year for five Orioles representatives, plus Gunnar Henderson in the Home Run Derby.
Baseball has the best All-Star Game of the major sports, but nothing compares to the Midsummer Classics of my youth, with future Hall of Famers all over the field wearing their teams’ uniforms. (Nice to see that second part come back last night.) And prior to interleague play, which removed the novelty of the American League facing the National League outside of the World Series.
Also, get off my lawn.
Ryan O’Hearn came close to facing future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw tonight in his first career All-Star Game at-bat.
Kershaw was a “Legend Pick” by commissioner Rob Manfred, marking his 11th All-Star selection. The three-time Cy Young Award winner retired Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, the Home Run Derby champion, on a liner to left and struck out Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
On the verge of a tough left-on-left matchup, O’Hearn instead got Padres right-hander Jason Adam and struck out looking at a 2-2 slider that nicked the outer half of the plate.
O’Hearn pulled a changeup foul on the previous pitch – an almost double.
The American League put runners on the corners against Mets left-hander David Peterson with two outs in the fourth, and O’Hearn grounded a first-pitch slider back to the mound. Peterson jogged to first base and flipped the ball for the out.
Tony Mansolino is carving his own path since the Orioles named him interim manager on May 17. It usually happens twice a day in the auxiliary clubhouse, where he meets with the media before and after games.
Former manager Brandon Hyde would veer to the right, around the rows of metal folding chairs, to reach his seat at the table, and he’d go back out the same way. Reporters knew the routine and how to avoid slowing or bumping into him.
Mansolino paused on his first day to wait for a public relations official and crossed up everyone by walking down the middle of the room. More fullback than halfback, though his build doesn’t offer the same comparison.
In one sense, Mansolino is following in Hyde’s footsteps because of the role unexpectedly thrust upon him. He’s got the office now and usually stands in the same spot at the dugout railing, to the far left. But he’s also figuring out on the fly how to make it job his own, for however long it belongs to him.
“I didn’t ask for this, so that morning when that happened, that was as big of a shock to me as it was you guys,” he said earlier this week. “So I think when you just kind of get thrown into the fire, you’re trying to get your feet settled and adapt.”
Here’s the latest with the Orioles from Day 2 of the draft:
Fourth round (124th): Colin Yeaman, shortstop. University of California-Irvine.
Yeaman, 21, was the Big West Player of the Year after batting .336/.447/.591 with 16 doubles, four triples, 13 home runs, 56 RBIs, 38 walks and 53 strikeouts in 60 games. He played two seasons at the College of the Canyons, batting .405 and .443 in a combined 56 games. He also underwent two surgeries on his left shoulder.
A lack of quickness and range, and average arm strength, could lead to a change in positions.
MLB Pipeline ranked Yeaman as the No. 97 prospect in the draft. His best tool is his bat, with a 55-grade hitting.
Day 2 of the draft begins later this morning and should move rapidly from rounds four to 20.
The Orioles paused late last night to admire their bounty after making seven selections.
Matt Blood, vice president of player development and domestic scouting, said he was thrilled with the level of talent that began with catchers Ike Irish and Caden Bodine and continued with shortstop Wehiwa Aloy, outfielder Slater de Brun, left-hander Joseph Dzierwa, right-hander JT Quinn and outfielder RJ Austin. Only de Brun, who committed to Vanderbilt, is a prep player.
“Just having that many picks on Day 1 gives you the ability to capitalize whenever these things happen,” Blood said. “We’re just really over the moon with the haul we were able to get today.”
(Cowser seemed most likely to jump over it, but I digress …)
