Three fake Orioles baseball games remain until we get to the good stuff. Well, I guess "good" remains to be seen as far as this season is concerned, so perhaps I should instead say until we get to the real stuff.
There are teams out there who've set their 25-man rosters already. The Orioles are not one of those teams, although I suspect they do know who will be on their roster by now. They just haven't made the moves they need to make to set it. We now know Miguel Gonzalez will not be on that roster at all. That news is a few hours old and I'm still bummed about it.
Being as the season is almost upon us and the O's are at home, the lineup once again looks very regular season-y:
1. Manny Machado 3B
2. Matt Wieters DH
3. Adam Jones CF
4. Chris Davis 1B
5. Mark Trumbo RF
6. Nolan Reimold LF
7. J.J. Hardy SS
8. Jonathan Schoop 2B
9. Caleb Joseph C
SP - Chris Tillman RHP
Though, I don't think there are any among us who'd like to see #2 hitter Wieters in the regular season. As with his presence at that spot yesterday, I think it's probably about giving him a chance to get some at-bats by having him higher in the order.
Wieters missed a lot of camp due to his "routine spring soreness" that knocked him out early on. The fact that Wieters is playing in this game at all gives us a good sign that he's going to be healthy for Opening Day, unless a setback crops up in the next few days.
Being as this will be the final tune-up start for Opening Day starter Tillman, hopefully he can look good too. I won't be holding my breath.
This game will be on both MASN and on 105.7 in Baltimore.