Right-hander reliever Cole Sulser's first season with the Orioles started off pretty well, but it didn't end up that way. He went 1-5 with a 5.56 ERA and with 17 walks and 19 strikeouts over 22 2/3 innings. The 30-year-old Sulser went 1-2 with five saves, a 3.46 ERA and a .116 (5-for-43) opponent's batting average in his first 10 outings. But he finished 0-3 with an 8.38 ERA and a .316 (12-for-38) opponent's batting average in his last nine outings. In this entry from last month, Sulser...

Making it through spring training healthy is a priority for the Orioles, but so is keeping players away from the injured list through the regular season. Breaking camp with them is important. So is avoiding shutdowns and extended absences later. Reliever Hunter Harvey talks about it every spring. Outfielder Anthony Santander came to the Orioles as a Rule 5 pick recovering from shoulder surgery and his last two seasons have been cut short, most recently due to the oblique strain in September...

For the first time this spring, all 72 players in the Nationals' big league camp were on the field and participating today. On the second day of full-squad workouts, the only two pitchers who had yet to participate (Javy Guerra and Jeremy Jeffress) were cleared to join their teammates. Guerra, who had been in Arizona with his wife as she gave birth in recent days, arrived in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday and on Tuesday cleared his mandatory intake testing. Jeffress, meanwhile, passed his...

Jahmai Jones is getting most of his reps in Orioles camp at second base, with the occasional shifts coming to the outfield. Jones, the former second-round draft pick acquired from the Angels in the Alex Cobb trade, brings a healthy level of experience at both positions and doesn't care where he settles. He isn't worried about the possibility of wearing a utility label. Being a major leaguer is the identity that he craves. And like everything else in today's Zoom conference call, he can...

When your debut season went as well as it did last summer for Orioles prospect Ryan Mountcastle, the encore can be challenging. "I think year two is always difficult," manager Brandon Hyde said today via Zoom of the challenges facing Mountcastle in 2021. "When you get to the big leagues, there is not a whole lot of major league data on you. But now that Ryan got some at-bats, teams are going to dissect how to try and get him out from the previous year. Year two is about making adjustments...

The Nationals, like every franchise, have been through multiple eras over the years. Break down their 17 seasons in the District into smaller chunks, and you can rattle off each of those eras with only a handful of names. The Frank Robinson Era. The Ryan Zimmerman Era. The Adam Dunn Era. The Stephen Strasburg-Jordan Zimmermann Era. The Bryce Harper-Jayson Werth Era. The Max Scherzer-Strasburg-Anthony Rendon Championship Club. And now, the Trea Turner-Juan Soto Era. Make no mistake, that's the...

The initial attempts to fix Matt Harvey couldn't begin until the people running the facility in Pleasantville, N.J., trusted that he was willing to surrender to their methods. To the technology that he hadn't been exposed to and didn't really need in his dominant years. Ed Charlton and Mike Adams, co-owners of Baseball Performance Center, didn't need much convincing. Any doubts about Harvey's commitment evaporated in one brief exchange. "He came in and we didn't really know what to...

After the dust has settled on Minor League Baseball, and now that we actually have schedules for the 2021 season, I'm going to check in around Birdland. Today, I start by interviewing Joe Gregory, the general manager of the Triple-A Norfolk Tides. While the primary task of a big league GM is to acquire players to win games, a minor league GM does not acquire any players. They are supplied by the big league organization. But that is about the only job they do not have. They work with all...

There are no hard feelings weighing down Orioles outfielder Anthony Santander in camp. He wasn't bothered by the trade rumors this winter. He wasn't bitter after going through the arbitration process and emerging on the losing side. Let's start with the interest from other teams, with a source confirming talks between the Orioles and Marlins. Santander didn't become preoccupied with the reports or speculate whether he might never make it to Sarasota, Fla. "I heard rumors, but that didn't...

Late February always fills baseball fans with anticipation, and it is doing so again. But this year it's different. This year we aren't taking spring games for granted. As of this writing, the Orioles' exhibition and regular seasons are scheduled to take place on time, and fully. Assuming that doesn't change, this will be our last Throwback Thursday until October. "Orioles Classics" closes out February 2021 with plenty of clutch hitting from the Birds in games from the past eight years....