Orioles coach Chris Holt is on his third title in his third year in the organization. It just points to his growing importance to the club and how it has expanded each season. For two years, he was entrusted with overseeing pitching on the farm. Now he joins the major league staff for the first time in 2021. Holt was hired for the 2019 season as minor league pitching coordinator. That was the last full season before the pandemic, and of the Orioles' top six farm teams, four clubs led their...

One by one, Mike Rizzo crossed off five must-have items on his offseason wish list this winter. Power bat: Josh Bell. Corner outfielder: Kyle Schwarber. No. 4 starter: Jon Lester. Left-handed reliever: Brad Hand. No. 2 catcher: Alex Avila. Those were the five roster holes the Nationals absolutely needed to fill. And though some may have felt there was a sixth hole that needed to be addressed as well - third base - Rizzo never believed it was necessary to make anything more than the standard...

As he gets set to begin his third season in the Orioles organization, but first as the major league pitching coach, 41-year-old Chris Holt faces challenges everywhere he looks. How to continue to improve a staff that finished with a 4.51 ERA last year, up from 5.59 in 2019. How to continue to introduce more young pitching to the staff. And how to manage pitcher workloads in a 162-game season that followed a 60-game year. How do pitchers go from throwing 40 or 50 innings to getting back to, for...

A spring training camp with a roster that's grown to 73 players is bound to have a lot of moving parts. Fold in the influences of a pandemic that's turned the sport on its ear, and those parts can leave a vapor trail. Orioles manager Brandon Hyde knows that he's allowed to construct a 26-man roster, but he's open to any ideas. One of them is breaking camp with six starters. Hyde confirmed on Wednesday's Zoom conference call that it's a viable option. "I think anything's possible this...

Two days into spring training workouts and the Orioles have no complaints. Players due to report have made it to Sarasota, Fla. Every pitcher in camp has thrown in the bullpen - half the group yesterday and half today. No one is being brought along slowly due to health concerns. Outfielders Trey Mancini and DJ Stewart and super-utility player Stevie Wilkerson reported early and hit on the field today. "(Mancini) looks really good," manager Brandon Hyde said in his Zoom conference call with...

Major League Baseball this morning announced the schedules for the 2021 Minor League Baseball season, the final step in a year's worth of tinkering that saw MLB assume operations for all of its clubs' farm teams. The Rochester Red Wings, the Nationals' new Triple-A affiliate, will begin play on Tuesday, April 6 at Buffalo, the first of six straight road games against the Bisons. Rochester opens its home campaign at Frontier Field on Tuesday, April 13 with the first of six consecutive home...

The Nationals ace everyone's been waiting to hear about is fully healthy and throwing in the early days of spring training. The one nobody had been asking about, however, is currently being held back after suffering a minor injury before camp officially began. While Stephen Strasburg has fully recovered from last summer's right wrist surgery and is fully participating at workouts, Max Scherzer is not throwing for now after spraining his left ankle two weeks ago. According to manager Davey...

The reasons are simple. Why Félix Hernández signed a minor league deal with the Orioles and why he wants to keep pitching after 15 seasons in the majors. Short answers from a man with a lengthy baseball resume. The six-time All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner with the Mariners said today that opportunity led him to the Orioles, who will pay $1 million if he's on the club. And his latest attempt to earn a rotation spot after sitting out the 2020 season due to health concerns is...

The day has arrived. This morning in West Palm Beach, Fla., Nationals pitchers and catchers will take the fields outside The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches as a group and conduct their first official workout of 2021. It's quite all right if you need a moment here to compose yourself, wipe a tear from your eye or just take a few seconds to enjoy the meaning of all this. If it feels like a long time coming, it is. And it's not just that the 2020 season ended 3 1/2 months ago. It's how little...

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, his pitching coaches Chris Holt and Darren Holmes and the club's front office, among others, have to ponder something important about pitchers for the coming season: How do they get from here to there? In this case, the here is the innings load that pitchers were given in a shortened 60-game 2020 season, and the there is how it will work out now with 162 games facing the club. Last year Alex Cobb led O's pitchers with 52 1/3 innings and John Means was second with...