BALTIMORE—Orioles executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said on Tuesday that first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, who’s been on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left wrist since August 23rd, has been showing marked improvement.
“Mounty is doing well. He is in Florida. I was there during Instructional League yesterday and had a chance to see him work out,” Elias said before the Orioles played the San Francisco Giants. “He’s making a hitting progression. He has a sore wrist, and he’s making his way back from that, and that takes a few steps, but I do think we have a really good chance of seeing him playing for Norfolk here pretty soon.”
Triple-A Norfolk’s season ends on Sunday, complicating the timetable for getting injured players to return.
“I do think we’re going to get him back, and he’s making a push. And we definitely will take what we can get from him, and we’re hopeful to get him back before the season’s over.”
Infielder Jordan Westburg, who broke his right hand on July 31st, took live batting practice for the first time since then on Tuesday.
“Jordan’s doing great, too,” Elias said. “We can’t wait to have him back, and we are expecting him back before the end of the regular season. We’re not totally there yet, but it’s going really well.”
Elias didn’t rule out that Westburg would play for Norfolk sometime this week.
“I do think that’s a possibility. With the timeframes we’re dealing with here, it’s not really fair to me or the player to put exact timeframes on here,” he said. “They’re allowed to have a day where they’re sore. We might back things up a day. I don’t want to rule any of that out, but it is a possibility. He’s taking BP out on the field today, so he’s getting really close to playing baseball games.”
Infielder Ramón Urías has been out since September 1st with a sprained right ankle.
“Ramón is here. Saw him in Florida yesterday, too,” Elias said. “That’s chugging along well. I would put him in a similar bucket with our other position players, Mounty and Westburg, where we feel like we’re getting close to hopefully shipping them out to play some real baseball here soon and getting them back before the end of the regular season.”
Left-handed reliever Danny Coulombe has thrown two scoreless innings at Norfolk in his rehab assignment. He had surgery in June to remove bone chips from his left elbow. He was schedule to throw on Tuesday, but after the Tides were rained out, he’ll throw in one of the games in Wednesday’s doubleheader.
“I think the bottom line is with where we’re in with the calendar and then the nature of these rehab assignments that each outing is informative,” Elias said. “And then the next day is informative, how they feel the next day. So whenever he’s ready, we’re going to activate him when he’s ready. Right now, he’s gonna pitch at least one more time and possibly multiple times with Norfolk, but it’s really gonna kind of be Danny’s call and his stuff and his performance and all that.
“But he’s doing well and getting close to being an option. But we’re not gonna jump the gun on him until he’s fully healthy and back to his accustomed level.”
Elias was less certain about starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, who’s been on the injured list with right lat/teres major discomfort.
“I think time is the key element here. He’s doing really well,” Elias said. “I think he’s only about 5 1/2 weeks out from the injury, and even sort of optimistically, these are six-to-eight-week type of things, usually. So we’re still really on the front end of the window.
“He’s throwing a bullpen today. It’s healing. It seems like everything’s really moving in the right direction. Obviously, some days move a little faster than others, but it’s been a real steady course progression.
“That said, time and the calendar is not exactly our friend here with 12 games to go in the regular season, so we’re just kind of doing everything that we can to keep it moving in the right direction on a day-by-day basis, and sort of see where we’re at in terms of the calendar and then also our scenarios and what we’re projected to be in postseason-wise and all that, and we’ll see where we’re at with Grayson, but right now it’s a one-day-at-a-time thing.
“He’s throwing a bullpen today. Hopefully, that continues to go well. If it does, the next step would be live BPs, so on and so forth. One thing to keep in mind is Norfolk’s done after this weekend, so anything we have to do to build him up after that will have to be of the simulated variety. We’ll just see. We’re taking it one day at a time, but he is healing and doing really well, and that’s the most important thing.”
Elias didn’t like the idea of Rodriguez moving to the bullpen for the postseason if he can’t be built up enough to start.
“I think time would be the factor that might prevent that kind of buildup more than anything, but it’s a real factor, and, yeah, a reliever takes less buildup for sure,” he said. “But this kid is a starting pitcher. And, also, first and foremost, we’re going to be most interested in doing the right thing for his health and career, so we’ll take all that into account. Very difficult for me to give you a real direct answer on that, because it’s going to depend on the circumstances of the rest of our staff, the standings, yada, yada, yada.
“There’s a lot that’s going to go into it. But the main thing is making progress with his health one day at a time and when we get to a fork in the road about how much to build him up and when, we’ll address that then.”
Note: Utilityman Nick Maton has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Norfolk.