FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -Maybe it was right after Rich Hill left for his magnetic resonance imaging yesterday morning. Maybe it was when manager Dave Trembley was fawning over 2008 top draft choice Brian Matusz before the Orioles defeated the Boston Red Sox in the early afternoon. Maybe it was after Brad Bergesen pitched three scoreless innings in that 5-3 victory at Fort Lauderdale Stadium.
Maybe it all came together to take me back in time to another training camp in another sport.
Of course, I'm talking about Ravens training camp last year, when general manager Ozzie Newsome and coach John Harbaugh started out with every intention of bringing rookie quarterback Joe Flacco along slowly but finally had to surrender to circumstance and move the future up a year.
The Orioles don't want to put themselves in the same position. That's why Andy MacPhail stocked this training camp with so many pitchers that you can't tell a lot of them without a numerical roster. That's why Trembley doesn't even allow himself to imagine what his pitching staff might look like if he could start building it around Matusz and Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta.
Oh, and if you're wondering why I didn't mention Bergesen, that's because he's the one guy in the group of top pitching prospects who might end up being the exception, both out of necessity and because he's a "strike-thrower." He's a little further along on the developmental scale than the three pitchers who cracked Baseball America's list of Top 100 Prospects last week.
The question is whether circumstances could force the acceleration of the Orioles' pitching youth movement. The team already has temporarily lost Hill, Brad Hennessey and John Parrish to arm issues, and there still are five weeks left of training camp. MacPhail just signed veteran Adam Eaton to add organizational depth, but the rotation remains Jeremy Guthrie, Koji Uehara and three big question marks.
Trembley acknowledges the temptation to want to look into the future too soon but insists there is no chance the coaching staff or the front office will succumb to it.
The conversation started with Matusz. Trembley reiterated yesterday that there is no possibility of Matusz making the major league rotation out of spring training, even if he continues to look as good as he has so far.
