Austin Hays is in right field and batting first tonight and Cedric Mullins is in center and at the bottom of the order, as the Orioles head to Bradenton again to play the Pirates. Ryan Mountcastle is the left fielder and Anthony Santander is the designated hitter. DJ Stewart is at least a day away from getting back in the lineup as he recovers from a hamstring injury and gets at-bats on the back fields. Infielder Richie Martin also isn't in the lineup. Maybe on Saturday. Rio Ruiz is the third...

Ask almost anyone who watched Thursday's game what stood out about Josh Bell, and just about every answer would involve his seventh-inning homer. Ask Davey Martinez, and the answer is something completely different, something hardly anyone besides a manager would notice. "What I love about him, if you guys didn't notice, he hit a ground ball earlier and he ran really hard to first base," Martinez said during his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "That to me, I mean, you don't teach...

Teams don't set their season-opening starting rotations going only by spring training stats. But if they did it that way in Sarasota, here is how it might look for the Orioles. Left-hander John Means, as we have known since last season ended, will get the opening day start at Boston. Manager Brandon Hyde will probably make that official today. Then Means will have two spring starts to build up to six or seven innings and be a full-go at Fenway Park. Means' ERA was 12.29 after his second...

The Orioles cleared a spot on their 40-man roster this afternoon in preparation for opening day in two weeks. The Giants have claimed right-hander Ashton Goudeau off waivers from the Orioles, paring the 40-man to 39 players. Goudeau appeared in two exhibition game, the most recent on Saturday against the Blue Jays in Dunedin, and allowed two runs and one hit in four innings. He walked two batters and struck out five. A rotation spot didn't seem available to Goudeau, but he was a candidate to...

Jon Lester has been doing this since 2006, taking the mound on a warm spring afternoon in either Florida or Arizona and beginning the process of preparing his arm and body for the upcoming season. Today represented the 58th spring training start of the left-hander's long career. Suffice it to say, he knows the routine by now. And yet listen to how Lester described his emotions before he took the mound this afternoon in Port St. Lucie to make his delayed Nationals debut against the Mets. "I'd...

For the 15th consecutive year, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network will serve as the exclusive television home for the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, airing every regular season game for both franchises. Fans throughout the Mid-Atlantic will be able to watch the final week of Grapefruit League action on MASN, with four Spring Training contests - two Orioles games and two Nationals games - being televised later this month. The network will air the Orioles' games on March 23 vs. Tampa...

Stephen Strasburg won't miss any time with a left calf strain and will make his next start Friday on schedule. But the Nationals right-hander won't be doing it in a Grapefruit League game. Strasburg will throw four innings in a simulated game against teammates prior to the Nationals' official 6:05 p.m. exhibition against the Astros, manager Davey Martinez revealed this morning. "He says he feels fine," Martinez said during his pregame Zoom session with reporters. "But we want to make sure...

The final week of spring training is going to include four games broadcast on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network - two Orioles and two Nationals. MASN is airing the following: March 23: Orioles vs. Rays, 1:05 p.m. March 25: Orioles vs. Pirates, 6:05 p.m. March 28: Nationals vs. Cardinals, 1:05 p.m. March 29: Nationals vs. Astros, 1:05 p.m. Orioles games also can be accessed on MLB.TV. Unless there's a sudden pitching shortage, the Orioles are playing nine innings for the rest of the spring. The...

MASN will be broadcasting the Nationals' final two games of the spring later this month, the network announced today. The Nats' March 28 game against the Cardinals and March 29 Grapefruit League finale against the Astros will be televised from The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches. Both broadcasts begin at 1 p.m. EDT. MASN or MASN2 will again broadcast every Nationals regular-season game not picked up for national broadcast, beginning with the April 3 home game against the Mets. The April 1...

It took a little longer than expected, but today Jon Lester finally makes his Nationals spring training debut. The veteran left-hander, a key acquisition this winter, has been slotted all along as the club's No. 4 starter. But when he needed surgery to remove one of the parathyroid glands in his neck earlier this month, that schedule was delayed. The good news is, Lester is healthy and doesn't appear to have any lingering effects from the surgery. He's already faced live hitters in a...