Mychal Givens’ status for Opening Day is uncertain, as the veteran reliever is battling knee soreness and hasn’t pitched since March 16. His readiness is perhaps even more doubtful after this morning’s throwing session, as Givens was working off a mound and throwing to batters before cutting the session short. According to reporters on the scene (including MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko), Givens threw only 10 pitches and then left the mound in visible anger, even throwing his glove to the ground.
A trip to the 15-day injured list is looking increasingly likely in the wake of today’s news, and it’s a tough setback considering that Givens seemed to be relatively close to returning. Givens played catch on flat ground on consecutive days, and told Kubatko and other reporters yesterday that “for me, just getting the reps in is what I need, even if it’s a back field game. If I can get a couple more outings just to get my feet to rhythm and body in rhythm….[I can] get back to being in game mode.”
In a relatively quiet Baltimore offseason, Givens was one of the team’s more high-profile additions, agreeing to a one-year deal worth $5MM in guaranteed money (there is also a mutual option for 2024). The 32-year-old was signed to bring some veteran experience to a pretty young Orioles bullpen, and Givens still has plenty to offer on the mound, after posting a 3.38 ERA over 61 1/3 innings with the Cubs and Mets in 2022.
Dillon Tate is another Orioles reliever facing an injury problem, as the righty is still recovering from a forearm/flexor strain suffered in November. Manager Brandon Hyde said that Tate is tentatively planned to return by the middle of May, so while Tate will begin the season on the 15-day injured list, the O’s haven’t considered placing him on the 60-day IL. It is possible that a 60-day placement might yet come if Tate hits any setbacks, but he has seemingly been making pretty steady process, including a mound session yesterday.
On the catching front, James McCann has been bothered by some soreness in his left side, and his Opening Day availability might also be in doubt. “We’ve got some big steps to overcome these next couple days to be sure,” McCann told MLB.com’s Jake Rill and other reporters, “but again, it’s one of those things, for me, better be safe than sorry.”
McCann is unfortunately no stranger to side injuries, as he missed just under a month of the 2022 due to a left oblique strain. While this current soreness is also on his left side, McCann said his current issue is in a different area, and “it’s only minor” compared to his strain.
The Orioles acquired McCann in a December trade with the Mets, as New York also included $19MM of the $24MM owed to the catcher over the 2023-24 seasons. McCann will give Baltimore some veteran catching depth behind Adley Rutschman, but the O’s will have to dig deeper down the depth chart if McCann ends up having to spend any time on the 10-day IL to fully recover. Anthony Bemboom and Mark Kolozsvary have some MLB experience and are currently slated for the Orioles’ Triple-A team, though neither backstop is on the 40-man roster.
Thanks for the $5M, Mr. Elias. Enjoy your broken catcher.
You’re joking, right? As long ad they have Rutschman, they’ll look at ANYTHING McCann provides them as a consolation prize.
If that’s the case, why not keep Chirinos? Spock says your comment is illogical…
because mcann is coming from a playoff-locked, world series contending team and might have same valuable experience and insight for the very young clubhouse he is coming in to
the guy can’t stay on the field. Learn what a dunk cost is. $19M and an open roster spot is better than $24M and dead roster spot.
Sunk*
If Steve Cohen has shown anything, its that a sunk cost means nothing to him, or doesnt exist in his vocabulary. We all know he can afford any sunk cost.
McCann was a very good catcher in Detroit and Chicago on both sides of the ball.
Don’t know what happened with the Mets where he had a down year(s)?
McCann is due for a bounce back year in 2023 and could surprise some people if he gets back to some of his past production levels or better.
The Orioles have a very interesting, young team that is poised for a breakout.
Not sure if their pitching is enough for them to makes some noise in the crowded, very competitive AL East.
But, the Orioles have some very impressive, young position players on the big league team and in their pipeline,
Have been following MLB for well over 60 years.
These player injuries both going into Spring Training and coming out of them get more plentiful every year. What’s amazing is this is in spite of all the advancements in medical science – both in equipment and medical people.
I believe this can be tracked back to the analytic revolution and the Ivy League graduate students – most of whom never played organized baseball – that took over the running of teams from people that had spent 20-30 years working their way up from the ground to get those jobs.
You get 6 Facts Not In Evidence points!
Samuel, analytics is part of it. A history of not being fit and still succeeding is part of it. The male species obsession with biceps is part of it.
My personal experience and reading about it tell me that running 20 miles a week as a baseline would be a good start. Aerobic capacity improves strength work capability. Every sport depends FIRST on the legs. So start there.
Ability to repeat specific motions is very important. Running is repetitive. That’s a good thing. But more baseball specific activities must be practiced. And cross pollination can happen. Fielding grounders which improves hand eye coordination could eventually transfer to hitting.
But the biggest culprit is requiring the body to do things it’s just not equipped to do. Demanding that pitchers throw 100 MPH goes beyond any resemblance of common sense. Requiring batters to react to 100 MPH pitches is patently absurd. No wonder it’s strike out or hit a homer.
We are a much more sedentary society than ever before in history. I’m guessing you and I walked to school. Now it’s a CF traffic jam every morning and afternoon. Children played. Now adults schedule their lives and constantly bicker about everything. It’s not fun anymore to be a kid.
We have screwed up big time and can’t even see it. We’re staring at our phones every minute of every day. No wonder we can’t walk to Starbucks to get our Lenti Crapachino Oat Milk Latte. We drive EVERYWHERE. Ugh. We’re doomed.
I run 12 miles a week (age 58) and feel better than I did 25-30 years ago. Even then I was active in sports. But we have become a fat, lazy society and then wonder why we don’t get the good stuff. “Doomed” is misspelling of the real word, f***ed!
Yeah. Born to run. Beautifully designed for the activity, and the body doesn’t give you feel good endorphins on a whim.
whyhayzee;
I agree with the pitchers throwing 100 miles an hour. As I wrote previously, years ago MLB FO people looked at their players under contract as assets, and wanted to keep them – and keep them healthy – for as long as possible.
True story…
Of course we played baseball sunup to sundown most summer days. Either in the morning or afternoon – and if there wasn’t an organized little league or pony league game that day we went back to a field and played till it got too dark to see the ball.
A guy on the street next to me had his father mentoring him as a pitcher. Had him work with the best coaches at age 10. They taught him a curveball. In fact, he struck me out on one in a little league game at age 11. I’d never seen one before. He went on to play amateur ball in the area, pitch in collage, and ultimately make the majors. He bounced around with a number of teams, all said he had the best stuff on the staff. But in learning those pitches and throwing them at such a young age, he constantly had injury problems as an adult. One year he let it rip and won the Cy Young award. A few years later he was washed up at an early age.
Because of the money involved in organized baseball today, many kids are being brought up like him – someone mentoring them and asking to do things to their body pitching or hitting when their bodies are still developing. It causes injuries later.
You may recall when Billy Martin managed the A’s – “Billy Ball” they called it – as he took a crummy team and made them winners. But he wore out his pitchers that year and while they had another good year or two, he ruined them. Today I see so many MLB FO’s and managers/pitching coaches doing the same thing (I love the Rays but they load up on pitchers, overextend them, then do next man up thing with those they have in the minors).
This concept of tracking every pitch and batted ball and having people looking at overall statistics is simply absurd. There have been regimes in world history that attempted to do that with their people – some countries do that today.
Because I exercise a lot most of the people I interact with are in very good shape – from college to over 50. They understand the body, nutrition, anatomy, their individual bodies and how they’ll react to modifying their workout routines. But you are correct – most of the people I run into – be they relatives or business – have their smart phones attached to one of their hands. They can’t complete a sentence with someone without looking down at it. They have no perspective of anything. They react like dogs do living for the moment…..and they have the attention span of 4 year-olds.
P.S. If their phone tells them it’s clear in their area and they look out the window and see snow….they’re convinced it’s clear and there’s something wrong with their eyes.
SAMUEL IS AN ELITIST D-BAG – Please block me now. Have a nice day.
Don’t you think that maybe some of these medical and scientific advancements have also contributed to more injuries, like easier to identify, or able to better diagnose small injuries? You know, it wasn’t until the 1980s that MRI machines became commerically avaiable. 1977 was the first time a human underwent MRI scanning. Anymore, a guy slightly strains a muscle, or gets an HBP and is taken for a scan now. How many injuries in the 60’s and 70’s do you think went undiagnosed becase the tech simpily wasn’t invented yet, and the only two options the players had was tough it out and play through it or sit out until it feels better, rather than when it was fully healed?
Orioles are going to have a tough time taking a step or two forward this season. All you Orioles fans can say whatever about the farm system and analytics department all you want but you have to make moves to compliment what you have. The only plan is to keep as much money in the owners pockets for as long as they can. Of course I don’t know what I’m talking about but that’s ok.