SARASOTA, Fla. – Mychal Givens is due to make another spring appearance for the Orioles, perhaps this afternoon in Dunedin. It’s been six days. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in four outings and his heels are dug into his lock status in the bullpen. A sure thing if healthy. The sidearmer has surrendered an unearned run and two hits with seven stri

JUPITER, Fla. – Josiah Gray’s best pitch, it has become clear, is anything but a fastball. Opponents mashed the Nationals right-hander’s four-seamer last season to the tune of a .304 batting average and .738 slugging percentage. A whopping 24 of the league-high 38 home runs he surrendered came off that pitch. Gray’s breaking balls – a slider to rig

SARASOTA, Fla. – Cole Irvin got his extra up this afternoon, pitching into the sixth inning for the first time. He pumped strike after strike and rationed the Red Sox to Adam Duvall’s solo home run through the fifth. Pretty much how he wanted to wind down his stay in Orioles spring training. Irvin surrendered back-to-back doubles to Duvall and Dani

The Washington Nationals have made the following moves:    Optioned to Triple-A Rochester: OF Stone Garrett LHP Jose Ferrer   Ree-assigned to Minor League Camp: INF Leonel Valera

JUPITER, Fla. – The Nationals made three more cuts this morning, narrowing their options for the final spot on the bench to three players and the competition for four available spots in the bullpen to eight healthy arms. Outfielder Stone Garrett and left-hander Jose Ferrer were optioned to Triple-A Rochester, with infielder Leonel Valera reassigned

JUPITER, Fla. – While there’s been plenty of reason to fret about the Nationals rotation this spring, there hasn’t been much reason to worry about Josiah Gray. At least, not based on the right-hander’s results to date. Gray enters today’s start against the Cardinals with a sparkling 1.42 ERA in three Grapefruit League starts. He’s allowed only one

SARASOTA, Fla. – Orioles outfielder Anthony Santander walked into the clubhouse this morning wearing a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head and a pair of shades covering his eyes. The smile was unmistakable, though. It gave away his identity. So did the teammates who rushed over to hug Santander and ask how it felt to play for Venezue

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles are breaking out a lineup today that could have many similarities to their Opening Day setup, except with Austin Hays in center field while Cedric Mullins remains with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. And Gunnar Henderson isn’t playing after he homered yesterday in Clearwater. Mullins could be back by Thursday, w

A couple of quick thoughts as the Orioles hit the home stretch of spring training. They have seven spring games remaining over the next seven days and this time next week the spring games will be over. I have no stats to compare this to past years, but the O’s spring roster for their game versus Philadelphia on Monday was at 51 with 36 from the 40-

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals aren’t going to hit for much power this season, that seems pretty safe to say. Only three players projected to make the Opening Day roster hit double-digit home runs in the majors last year: Lane Thomas, Joey Meneses and Jeimer Candelario. Only Thomas hit more than 13 homers. If the Nationals are going to score