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Left-hander Wei-Yin Chen (pictured) was on his way to his second strong performance in a row when he grabbed at his side and exited Sunday's game with a right oblique strain. That's very bad news for a team that already has called on four Triple-A starters to fill in the fifth slot in the rotation and replace injured Miguel Gonzalez. It was a tough week already, after so-so outings by Jason Hammel, Freddy Garcia and Steve Johnson, and that was reflected in the combined numbers. The rotation posted a 2-2 record with a 6.03 ERA and averaged just five innings per start. Even though the team managed to go 4-2 in those games, this is starting to get scary.
Grade: D (Hannah Foslien / Getty Images /May 12, 2013)
One of my last baseball duties before taking some time off, and officially handing the spring training baton to Peter Schmuck (Ed Encina is running the marathon; he’s not in a relay) happens tonight (Monday) at 7 p.m.
I’ll be hosting a hot stove baseball talk to get you ready for pitchers and catchers reporting Tuesday and the Orioles’ first workout Wednesday. My third annual hot stove talk is tonight in York, Pa., at Zion Lutheran Church, 2215 Brandywine Lane.
And it’s free (although we will have a freewill offering with the proceeds going to the church’s youth ministry program).
I am not doing this alone. Mel Antonen, the long-time USA Today baseball writer who now works for MASN, SI.com and Sirius/XM, will help me talk all things baseball. And the York Daily Record’s Jim Seip, who has covered the York Revolution since their inception, also will speak about that club and the Atlantic League.
Obviously, it is my charity event so I am pretty biased. But I think it is a pretty cool, pretty casual event. And those who have come in the past seem to return. This is our third year, and we hope for a biggest turnout tonight. If you need more information, call the church at 717-767-4673.
One more programming note: After tonight I am going to be shutting things down for the rest of February. Very few, if any, blogs, tweets or stories will be coming from me. But we do have you covered.
Ed Encina and Peter Schmuck are in Sarasota and will continue to write, blog and tweet everything Orioles. I will switch with Schmucker in early March and take over the final four weeks on spring training (and the start of the regular season). Lucky Ed gets to do all seven weeks of spring training.
So I’ll be writing soon enough, but until then Ed and Pete have you covered.
Thanks for checking in during the long winter.
