They wore jerseys with names and numbers on them for the first time in four months, one team in red tops and gray pants, the other in all white. They played music between innings from a large speaker near the dugout. They sent two big league starters to the mound for this five-inning intrasquad matchup, but didn't have enough available position players to fill both lineups after one had to be scratched due to a "contact lens issue." So they were forced to use a minor league coach as the...

As manager Brandon Hyde provides the occasional reminder that it's still too early to offer a completed lineup projection for opening day, he keeps batting Austin Hays and Hanser Alberto in the leadoff spot during intrasquad games and offering a glimpse at the options that enable him to complete one of the tasks. Proven leadoff hitters aren't falling from the Orioles' tree. Hays and Alberto are the only logical considerations - the former based on tools that eventually could lower him into...

Ryan Mountcastle was given another look in left field tonight for the "visiting" Orioles in their intrasquad game at Camden Yards. Use him before they lose him. Both teams had a full outfield, which in itself is a noteworthy achievement. Mountcastle, Andrew Velazquez and Mason Williams for the team wearing white. DJ Stewart, Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins for the team in orange. Both lineups held 10 players. The Orioles suddenly are overflowing - though still minus outfielders Dwight Smith...

Catcher Adley Rutschman should be in the midst of his first full minor league season right now, possibly playing at Single-A Frederick or Double-A Bowie. But the baseball shutdown changed all of that. On Friday, he reported to Camden Yards to join the Orioles' 60-man player pool. Stranger things have happened, but it seems unlikely they would use him in a major league game before he's even played above low Single-A ball, but he's back mixing with the big league players again. He was also a...

The Nationals placed relievers Wander Suero and Roenis Elías on the injured list this evening, the first such transactions the club has made involving any of the eight players who had yet to be cleared to participate in summer training. No reason for Suero and Elías' placement on the IL was provided, but neither pitcher has been present through the first 11 days of at workouts at Nationals Park, both required to remain in quarantine. "I can't say anything about that," manager Davey...

Daniel Hudson need not prove to anyone his commitment to family over baseball. This is the guy, of course, who missed Game 1 of last fall's National League Championship Series so he could fly home to Phoenix and be with his wife, Sara, as she gave birth to the couple's third daughter. So it should come as no surprise to learn that Daniel and Sara thought long and hard about their plan for the abbreviated 2020 season and whether it was worth the risk for the veteran reliever to leave the rest...

Orioles infielder Richie Martin and pitcher Ty Blach are scheduled to undergo surgery on Wednesday after suffering injuries last week in summer training camp. The truncated 2020 season will go on without them. Martin is having a procedure to repair a fractured bone in his right wrist. Blach is slated for Tommy John surgery after receiving a second opinion on his sore left elbow. Manager Brandon Hyde said the timetable on Martin's recovery is two to three months. The regular season ends on...

It was in a mostly empty stadium and it was merely an intrasquad game. There was not exactly a playoff intensity at hand. But in that environment Saturday night, Adley Rutschman was on the field at Camden Yards. On a diamond where future stardom is predicted for him, he took the field as a player for the first time. Rutschman, the club's second No. 1 overall draft pick in team history, walked against right-handers Kohl Stewart and Hunter Harvey and grounded out against righty Miguel Castro. He...

By this time next week, we'll be staring at real baseball games (assuming COVID-19 doesn't again rear its ugly head and get in the way of our long-awaited reunion with the national pastime). So consider this your own version of the latter stages of spring training 2.0, where you reacquaint yourself with how to watch baseball games in preparation for next weekend's Orioles series in Fenway Park that kicks off the truncated 2020 campaign. Sometimes, the most important thing in a game happens...

Can you hold on for one more week? The long delay of the start of the 2020 season and the resulting longer-than-anticipated wait for the raising of the championship banner at Nationals Park make the 2019 season seem like a very distant memory of a much simpler time. But in just seven days, baseball finally, finally returns as the Yankees come to South Capitol Street to kick off the oddest season in the sport's long history. While we don't yet know exactly what baseball in the 2020s will be...