The Orioles were hoping that 2010 minor league Player of the Year Joe Mahoney could return to the Double-A Bowie Baysox by Sunday, but that is now very unlikely. Mahoney, who has been on the disabled list twice this year with a quad injury and has had just 34 at-bats with Bowie, has suffered a setback at extended spring training. The Orioles were hoping he could get into an extended spring training game Tuesday, but Mahoney is now out with a tight hamstring. Right now, that is a day-to-day...

Jeremy Guthrie pitched an amazing baseball game last night. Undone in the eighth inning, Orioles fans who stayed up past midnight hoping for a win will only remember the crushing home run by Justin Smoak, but Guthrie was fantastic. He's been fantastic for most of this year, and for much of his time in Baltimore. But with one year left on his contract, Guthrie could bring back to the Orioles pieces that will help the team in the future. The Orioles are improved this year, there is no denying...

National pastime in the nation's capital, meet your leader. Reliever Drew Storen launched a campaign during his recent visit to the MLB Fan Cave asking fans to adopt the Nationals as America's team. Here's his campaign video: The spoof mentions realistic reasons (close proximity to the White House) and funny reasons too (like the team's facial hair diversity). Can the Nationals be America's team?

The Orioles have now lost all five games on this road trip by a combined 10 runs. They have lost the last four by two, two, one and one run. It is big-time frustrating to lose close games and they are now 11-11 on the year in games decided by two runs or less. A batting average of .158 (6-for-38) on this trip with runners in scoring position has been a major factor contributing to the close losses as the Orioles have scored just 13 runs in Oakland and Seattle. The concern level for the...

With the calendar flipping to June, it's not too early to start thinking about who might represent the Washington Nationals at the mid-summer classic, the 2011 All-Star Game on July 12 in Phoenix. It's an honor for players to be voted in by the fans, but the first early results posted by Major League Baseball show no Nationals player in the top five in voting for position players or top 15 outfielders. Unfortunately, $126 million isn't enough to buy Jayson Werth a few All-Star votes. But...

For the Orioles, this was one of the most frustrating losses of the year. On a night when Jeremy Guthrie outpitched former Orioles lefty Erik Bedard for most of the game, one key error and one bad pitch cost him the game as the Mariners beat the Orioles 3-2 to take the first two games of the series in Seattle. The O's took a 2-0 lead to the last of the eighth and Guthrie got the first two outs. But Ichiro Suzuki reached when Guthrie was charged with an error in taking a throw from first...

Jeremy Guthrie took a three-hit shutout into the eighth inning, retired the first two batters, committed an error, gave up a single and hung a changeup. This is how losing streaks continue and why fans curse their decision to stay awake. Justin Smoak hit a towering three-run homer off Guthrie to give Seattle a 3-2 lead. Koji Uehara grabbed his glove after Brendan Ryan's single into right field, but he barely had time to step on the bullpen mound before Smoak destroyed the Orioles, 2-0...

In case you're having trouble keeping track of all the starting times on this road trip, today's game in Seattle begins at 3:40 p.m. on the East Coast. Welcome back, Brian Matusz. I've written this before, but I can't believe it's been two months since Matusz was supposed to make his 2011 debut at Tropicana Field. It was April 2, to be exact, and Matusz was inconsolable after being scratched from his start, sent for an MRI and placed on the disabled list. A wart, a line drive off his...

Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa feels like he might have something going here. With a pair of homers Tuesday night in a 10-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies, Espinosa now has the team lead and a career-high 10 home runs on the season. Espinosa has hit the three total round trippers in the series against pitchers named Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. And with four homers in the past five games, Espinosa senses he is in a groove at the plate. It is no fluke. Last season, Espinosa...

Former Oriole Erik Bedard has struck out five batters over three scoreless innings tonight. He's thrown 32 strikes among his 44 pitches, and the only hit off him is Nick Markakis' single with two outs in the first. Bedard was 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA in his last five starts before tonight. He's thrown 18 consecutive scoreless innings, including the three tonight. I guess he's healthy again. If Jeremy Guthrie thought this would be the night that he'd get a generous amount of run support,...