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Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo, who has spent the past six months rehabilitating a surgically repaired knee, is scheduled to make his first exhibition appearance of the spring Wednesday against the Toronto Blue Jays at Ed Smith Stadium.
Trumbo will appear as a designated hitter. He has done every baseball activity during the final weeks of his rehab program and said two days of base-running drills have left him with no other way to test the knee other than to play.
“There’s not really anything left, but going out there and getting in the game,’’ he said Tuesday.
Trumbo said playing defense is still in the future, but he’s been eager to join in what he feels has been an impressive exhibition season so far by his young Orioles teammates.
“It’ll be nice to get the at-bats and run the bases, especially on a ground ball or something,’’ he said. “Under game stress, it can be a little bit more than anything you can simulate sometimes, so I’m excited to get out there.
“Health-wise, we’ve done as much as we can. At some point, you’re just going to have to get out there and see what you’ve got. There are no further hurdles that would be any better indicators than game action. So we’ll see. If it responds like it has so far, we should be good to go, we’ll keep rolling. If it doesn’t, then we’ll deal with it.”
Trumbo has taken a lot of live batting practice from some of the Orioles’ best pitchers, so it’s not like he’s going out there cold. But with less than two weeks left of the Grapefruit League schedule, time is growing short.
“So far, it’s been a pretty decent spring training from that standpoint,’’ he said. “I haven’t been limited at all. I got to face Alex [Cobb] and probably took five at-bats against him. I took some against Jimmy [Yacabonis], [Andrew Cashner], Dylan [Bundy]. These are all quality pitchers who can give you a better look than any kind of batting practice.
“I think I should probably have a decent number of at-bats already, depending on how you look at it.”
But does Trumbo have enough time to be on the Opening Day roster instead of the disabled list?
“That’s what we got,’’ he said. “Ideally, a bit more would be great, but I’m just happy that we have some [time] to work with.”
Trumbo is not scheduled to play defense yet, but manager Brandon Hyde said that would not necessarily keep him off the Opening Day roster.
“If he can break [camp] with us as the DH, that would be great,” Hyde said, “but I’m not relying on it … I don’t think he needs to take ground balls to make the Opening Day roster. I just want him to be healthy and he can hit and his knee feels good, we’ll consider it at that time.”
Though Trumbo speculated that he might play again Thursday, Hyde said he will get that day off before returning to the exhibition lineup.
“No, he’ll get a day off after tomorrow,” Hyde said. “We’re going to give him a couple at-bats tomorrow and hopefully he comes out of the game feeling great and then kind of reassess from there his schedule for the next two weeks.”
The Orioles’ other veteran first baseman, Chris Davis, will return to the exhibition lineup Tuesday night against the New York Yankees at Steinbrenner Field. He has not played in a game since March 3.
