Roberto Alomar will be inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame later tonight, before the series-opener against the Seattle Mariners at Camden Yards. The former second baseman arrived early today to attend a luncheon, along with longtime baseball operations executive Don Pries, who will receive the Herb Armstrong Award. Alomar spent a few minutes talking to the local media, smiling as he recognized the faces of reporters who covered the team during his three seasons in Baltimore. "I feel...

Mike Rizzo and the Nationals announced a new long-term deal for the general manager last night. Managing principle owner Theodore N. Lerner praised the work the 52-year-old executive has done since 2009 to turn the Nationals into, "one of the most exciting and respected young teams in baseball." Rizzo talked in the press release about the hard work they have done with the Lerners' support to build "this club from nearly expansion level - at both the minor and major league level," into a...

Following the two-game disaster in Detroit, the Nationals open a three-game set with the Brewers starting tonight. They do so with their general manager locked up long-term and their No. 3-5 starters set to take the mound in Milwaukee. Tonight, it'll be Jordan Zimmermann getting the ball against old pal Tom Gorzelanny, who has worked his way into the Brewers' rotation within the last month. When the Nationals sent Tyler Moore back to Triple-A Syracuse on July 8, they said the plan was to...

Going into the fifth inning last night, the Orioles had been shutout in two of their last three games and had been shutout over the previous 15 innings by Houston pitching. They finally broke out a bit on offense and posted a 6-3 win. The Orioles had scored just 19 runs in their previous eight games and had just 15 hits in their last three. Will the offense now get back on track after scoring six runs with 11 hits last night? We probably need much more evidence than that one night. A look...

Cuban outfielder Henry Urrutia, who's been transformed into Cuban designated hitter Henry Urrutia, is 11-for-33 since the Orioles selected his contract from Triple-A Norfolk. He has three multi-hit games on his short resume. Keep running him out there. Speaking of running, it's one part of Urrutia's game that needed improvement. He certainly did a nice job going from first to third last night on shortstop Jonathan Villar's fielding error. The ball rolled into shallow left field and he...

Right-hander Lucas Giolito had a very good outing for the rookie-level Gulf Coast Nationals, tossing four shutout innings and striking out four, walking none and allowing only two hits. This outing came after a couple of starts were he allowed five runs in a total of 3 1/3 innings. Giolito is now 0-1, with a 4.26 ERA. The GCL Nats won the game 10-3 over the GCL Cardinals and are 30-6 in the East division. It was the first time Giolito had allowed no runs in a road start in three...

Bud Norris got what he wanted tonight - the chance to compete in a pennant race - and he got the win for his new team against his former one as the O's beat Houston. "Been working a long time in my career to be in a pennant race," he said. "To be thrown into the fire and to go out there and control my emotions was pretty special. Very happy with the win. "A tough group over there. They knew me pretty well but I worked well with Matt (Wieters), guys made some plays behind me and that was...

Orioles manager Buck Showalter summed up Bud Norris' outing tonight in a few words. "He was good," Showalter said following a 6-3 win over the Astros. "Probably a lot of emotion there. He wants to funnel that. He wants to start well, facing people he knows. I thought he handled it well. "I saw him over in Houston obviously and watched a lot of tape on him the last month of so. Just attack the strike zone with his fastball. He has the makings of a good changeup. The two home runs were...

For the Orioles, the offense finally came. And it came in time for Bud Norris to get the win in his Orioles debut. The O's scored three in the fifth, twice in the sixth and once in the seventh tonight to beat Houston 6-3 and take the series, two wins to one. The game also featured another Chris Davis homer. His solo shot off Travis Blackley in the seventh was his 39th homer and RBI No. 100. Davis recorded the 39th 100-RBI season in Orioles history and first since Nick Markakis drove in 101...

It was bound to happen. May as well get it out of the way now. Bud Norris turned in a quality start tonight in his Orioles debut, allowing two runs and four hits over six innings, with two walks and a season-high eight strikeouts. Both runs came on homers by Brett Wallace and Marc Krauss. Norris was removed after 104 pitches, including 65 for strikes. He had thrown 120 and 119 in his last two starts and was working on seven days rest, but manager Buck Showalter turned the game over to Tommy...