Adam Jones last played on Wednesday. It is now Sunday and he is still not in the Orioles starting lineup. Not even Saturday's peculiar wintry mix-out of that scheduled game was enough to give him that last bit of rest to get him into the lineup.
So much for the hopes that he would play this weekend. That was the equivocating language used on Friday to explain his absence for what was at that time supposed to be just one more day, with Jones on the verge - again, supposedly - of being in playing shape due to soreness in the rib area, which soreness everyone continues to insist is not in Jones' oblique.
There's no sense in worrying about it for O's fans because it's not like we can control what's going to happen, but it is something to keep an eye on.
The rain/snow day was enough to get J.J. Hardy back into the lineup. It is still going to be plenty cold in Baltimore today. There just won't be any precipitation. Maybe Hardy's teammates will do him a favor in this game and just hit home runs if Hardy makes it on base, rather than continuing to force him to run the bases.
Oh, and it's also going to be Hyun Soo Kim's first regular season start. If Kim's able to get a hit today, I'll be over the moon for him.
Sunday's lineup:
1. Joey Rickard - CF
2. Manny Machado - 3B
3. Chris Davis - 1B
4. Mark Trumbo - RF
5. Matt Wieters - C
6. Pedro Alvarez - DH
7. J.J. Hardy - SS
8. Jonathan Schoop - 2B
9. Hyun Soo Kim - LF
And that's the group supporting starting pitcher Vance Worley, who's also making his first regular season start. Mike Wright, Saturday's scheduled starter before the postponement, looks like he will now be starting instead on Tuesday. The explanation for that is that he had warmed up heavily before yesterday's game was ultimately postponed, so they didn't want to just have him pitch the next day.
The Orioles are now the last undefeated team in MLB, and if they win today, they'll match the best start (5-0) in franchise history - that being the 1970 Orioles team. I hear they had a pretty good year.