TORONTO - Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy last played for the team on May 1. He has been out since then with a fractured left foot. But his return to the club is now finally getting close. In the next few days, Hardy may be playing on a minor league rehab assignment. He could need just a few games there to get ready to rejoin the Orioles. "Yeah, he's close," manager Buck Showalter said today in his pregame media session. "I'm not going to jinx it. See how today and tomorrow goes, but he's...

Chris Davis will attempt to homer in five straight games today and the Orioles will try to gain a split of their four-game series with the Blue Jays before heading to Boston. Davis has homered in four consecutive games for the fourth time in his career. Before his current stretch, it most recently happened on July 11-13, 2013. Mark Trumbo is in right field today and Pedro Alvarez is serving as the designated hitter. For the Orioles Adam Jones CF Hyun Soo Kim LF Manny Machado SS Chris Davis 1B...

TORONTO - The winning team has trailed at some point in each of the first three games of the series between the Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. So the key today is to fall behind? For the Orioles, the key is probably to get a much better pitched game than yesterday when they lost 11-6 and allowed a season-high tying 11 runs. O's pitchers have allowed 20 runs and 31 hits in the series. They didn't yield a homer in Thursday's win, but have given up five the past two games. The...

The Orioles must figure out a way to fix their rotation. There may not be an easy answer beyond activating Yovani Gallardo and crossing fingers and toes, but the deck needs shuffling or they may not even capture a wild card. (You totally see what I did there) Tyler Wilson gave up five runs and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings Thursday night. He's allowed 10 runs and 14 hits over 9 2/3 innings in two starts this month, and his ERA has risen from 2.93 on May 11 to 4.73. Mike Wright was charged with...

The Washington Nationals concluded Major League Baseball's 2016 First-Year Player Draft by selecting 30 players on Saturday. Nationals President of Baseball Operations & General Manager Mike Rizzo and Assistant General Manager & Vice President of Scouting Operations Kris Kline made the joint announcement. Over three days of the Draft, the Nationals selected a total of 41 players: 12 right-handed pitchers, eight left-handed pitchers, six outfielders, 10 infielders and five catchers. Of...

The Major League Baseball draft is done and the Orioles selected 41 players, including 27 pitchers. Thirty-one of the selections are college athletes. The Orioles picked 15 right-handed pitchers, 12 southpaws, nine infielders and five outfielders. Today's haul included local product Tyler Blohm, a left-hander from Archbishop Spalding in Millersville. The Orioles chose him in the 17th round. The Orioles also took left-hander Brandon Bonilla in the 13th round out of Hawaii Pacific. If the name...

The Orioles made 30 selections on Day Three of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft today, completing rounds 11-40. This year, the Orioles selected 41 players overall, 27 pitchers and 14 position players, with 31 of the selections being college athletes. The Orioles selected 15 right-handed pitchers, 12 left-handed pitchers, nine infielders, and five outfielders.

TORONTO - It didn't seem it took that long for the Orioles to go from the feel-good postgame clubhouse after Thursday's win to a mini crisis with their pitchers after allowing 11 runs in Saturday's loss at Rogers Centre. The Orioles now have now lost three times when scoring six or more runs and Toronto has won twice when allowing six or more after yesterday's 11-6 win by Toronto. They have taken two of three in the series which concludes this afternoon. The Orioles went 3-6 at Rogers...

TORONTO - For the Orioles today, it started with their starter. Right-hander Mike Wright walked a season-high five batters and O's pitching never could recover. Even after the Orioles rallied from 3-0 down to lead 4-3 in the sixth on Manny Machado's homer, the Toronto Blue Jays kept teeing off. O's pitchers fueled that with eight walks and a hit batter. For one day at least, Rogers Centre was once again a house of horrors for O's hurlers. On a day where manager Buck Showalter said he had...

There are different ways to break up the baseball season into chunks - 10 separate 16-games stretches, nine separate 18-game stretches, quarters, thirds, halves, etc. - and the Nationals are at one of those junctures right now. They've played 62 games, which means there are exactly 100 to go. Mathematically, it doesn't really mean much. The season is now 38.2716 percent complete. That's not a nice, round number. But there's something philosophically about there being exactly 100 games left...