Orioles announce Opening Day roster, Kevin Gausman officially starting in bullpen

What do you need with 14 pitchers on your Opening Day roster? That's what the Orioles have on their roster that they finalized on Sunday afternoon. That is a lot of pitchers.

The number will, presumably, shrink by one when Chris Davis is activated from the restricted list after his suspension concludes. That will occur after only a day. Someone will be there on Monday who is gone on Tuesday. Even once they do that, they'll still end up with 13 pitchers on the roster, unless Dan Duquette has some kind of flurry of moves up his sleeve.

The Orioles also announced that their fifth starter will be Ubaldo Jimenez, with Kevin Gausman beginning the season in the bullpen. Things had kind of looked that way for a while. Now it's official.

To pare down to the 25-man for Opening Day, the Orioles placed four players on the disabled list. J.J. Hardy (shoulder), David Lough (hamstring), and Matt Wieters (Tommy John) are all on the DL retroactive to March 27, meaning that they can be activated as soon as April 11, if they are ready. Jimmy Paredes (back) has been placed on the 15-day disbabled list retroactive to April 1.

The Orioles also optioned T.J. McFarland to Norfolk, and reassigned Ryan Lavarnway and Nolan Reimold to minor league camp. They will probably also be headed for Norfolk to start out the minor league season. Rule 5 pick Jason Garcia has made the team, at least to start out.

The Opening Day roster:

STARTING PITCHERS

Chris Tillman
Wei-Yin Chen
Miguel Gonzalez
Bud Norris
Ubaldo Jimenez

RELIEF PITCHERS

Brad Brach
Zach Britton
Jason Garcia
Kevin Gausman
Tommy Hunter
Brian Matusz
Darren O'Day
Ryan Webb
Wesley Wright

CATCHERS

Steve Clevenger
Caleb Joseph

INFIELDERS

Everth Cabrera
Ryan Flaherty
Manny Machado
Jonathan Schoop

OUTFIELDERS

Alejandro De Aza
Adam Jones
Steve Pearce
Travis Snider
Delmon Young