BALTIMORE—Mychal Givens was in the Orioles’ clubhouse before Wednesday night’s game. Dillon Tate was not.
Neither Givens nor Tate has pitched for the Orioles this season, though Givens pitched in Grapefruit League games. Givens has been on the 15-day injured list with left knee inflammation and Tate has been on the IL because of an elbow injury.
On Tuesday night, Tate retired just one batter and allowed four runs on six hits for Triple-A Norfolk. Givens followed and retired all five batters he faced.
“Sounds like they both came out healthy, which is the number one thing,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “The line score with Dillon wasn’t real good, but you factor a lot of things, how his stuff was, how his stuff played.”
Tate has given up 12 earned runs on 16 hits in 6 1/3 innings for a 17.05 ERA in eight rehab games—four at Double-A Bowie, three at Norfolk and one at High-A Aberdeen. Givens has a 4.76 ERA in 5 2/3 innings. He has thrown five times at Bowie as well as on Tuesday night for the Tides.
“When you evaluate a rehab assignment game, you really have to watch,” Hyde said. “You can’t just go on a box score. D-Tate gets contact, some swinging bunt stuff, but mainly how their stuff looked. It sounded like Mychal threw the ball well, threw the ball good … Dillon’s getting better. He’s getting close.”
Givens will throw a bullpen for the Orioles, perhaps on Thursday. Tate has at least one more rehab assignment with Norfolk.
Pitchers’ rehab assignments can last 30 days, and Tate’s can run through May 24th. At that time, he’ll either be activated by the Orioles or optioned to the minor leagues. He has two options left.
Mateo sits: Shortstop Jorge Mateo is not in the Orioles’ lineup for Wednesday night’s game against the Angels. He’s dealing with leg soreness, Hyde said. Mateo carried a .347 average into May, but his month he’s just 5-for-43 (.116), although he did drive in two runs in Tuesday night’s 7-3 win over the Angels.
Hyde said that Mateo has been dealing with the leg soreness for the past few weeks.
“With a day game tomorrow, he’ll be in there. I wanted to make sure with two big series coming up,” Hyde said.
“He’s had a tough week offensively. Everybody’s going to have tough weeks throughout the long season. He’s working hard to get back on track. Good to see him last night with two really good at-bats, love to see him hit the ball the other way the way he did with runners in scoring position and the sac fly was huge for us. He’s still contributing for us, playing great defense.”
Joey Ortiz will start at shortstop.
Change in plans for Hall: DL Hall started for Norfolk on Tuesday night and threw just three innings. Hyde said the organization’s approach to Hall has changed.
Hall has thrown 30 1/3 innings for the Tides and three innings with the Orioles after a late start in spring training because of a back injury.
“That’s a plan that they put in place with him to kind of build, to build strength,” Hyde said. “He missed so much time with the back and nearly all of spring training, a little different plan for him, lowering his pitch count for right now and getting him out on the mound more, but also allowing him to recover and build strength back.”
Call for questions: I’ll be answering Orioles questions later this week. Please email yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com