Jason Hammel

NEW YORK -- Orioles right-hander Jason Hammel, named the starter for a decisive ALDS Game 5 if needed, said his right knee felt good after a between-start bullpen session before Wednesday's Game 3. “It was a little stiff from the bus ride, but it everything was good,” Hammel said, referring to the Orioles' impromptu bus ride early Tuesday morning after their train broke down. “There's no pain, it's just discomfort. It's back to the part where there's some swelling or some fluid could be in there but it's hit or miss every day depending on workload.” In his first start since limping off the mound in the fourth inning Sept.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Orioles were introduced to the latest jewel of the Tampa Bay Rays' pitching pipeline Friday night. Rays right-hander Chris Archer, who was making just his sixth career big league start, limited the high-powered Orioles offense to a season-low two hits in a 2-1 loss to Tampa Bay in front of an announced 13,256 at Tropicana Field. Orioles starter Jason Hammel took a one-run lead into the seventh-inning stretch, but he allowed a two-run homer to Rays center fielder Desmond Jennings in bottom half of the frame.

Jason Hammel, who had surgery on his right knee in July, threw 41 pitches in a mound session Tuesday and also went through pitcher's fielding practice for the first time since loose bodies were removed from the knee. He felt good afterward, and if no pain lingers this week, he will throw a two- or three-inning simulated game Friday at Camden Yards, Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. Hitters will stand in while Hammel throws from a mound.     “That's what our hope is, Friday.

Jason Hammel's breakout season in 2012 was rewarded Friday when he agreed to a one-year, $6.75 million deal with the Orioles to avoid arbitration. He could make up to $300,000 more in performance incentives. Closer Jim Johnson also agreed to a one-year deal Friday ($6.5 million) , leaving just reliever Darren O'Day as the only arbitration-eligible player remaining on the club. Hammel, 30, went 8-6 with a 3.43 ERA in 20 starts for the Orioles last season. Acquired last February from the Colorado Rockies in a deal for Jeremy Guthrie, Hammel emerged as the club's top starter in the first half of the season, but a knee injury required surgery and limited his second half to just three regular season games.

Orioles right-hander Jason Hammel received positive news about his injured right knee Thursday, when an MRI showed no new injury. Though Hammel said there's no official timetable for his return, he said he hopes to pitch again this season. "It's the best situation we could have," Hammel said after Thursday's game. "I was pumped to hear that. I thought something else was going on just by the way it felt. " "We got good news that there's no new injury we can see on the MRI," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Orioles right-hander Jason Hammel came out of his 73-pitch simulated game with the team's instructional league with his surgically reconstructed right knee feeling good, he and was given the green light to pitch in the postseason. "It feels as good as it's going to feel until the season's over," Hammel said before Tuesday's game against the Tampa Bay Rays. "I'm not thinking about it. There's minimal discomfort, it's not something I can't handle. " Hammel, who aggravated the knee Sept.

When Orioles right-hander Jason Hammel hobbled off the mound at Camden Yards in the fourth inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 11, he didn't think he'd be able to help the O's for a possible postseason run. The stabbing pain in his right knee felt the same as the one he felt in mid-July, which prompted arthroscopic surgery to remove loose cartilage fragments from the knee, costing Hammel an eight-week stretch of the season....

The debate whether right-hander Jason Hammel intentionally threw at Detroit Tigers left fielder Matt Tuiasosopo's head was markedly one-sided in both clubhouses following the the Orioles' ugly 10-3 loss Saturday. Both dugouts agreed that Hammel had no intent to harm Tuiasosopo in the fourth inning of Saturday's game. The umpires didn't entirely disagree, but claimed that Hammel - intentionally or not - forced them to prevent a wild game from getting out of hand. After allowing three consecutive solo home runs to the Tigers in the fourth inning, Hammel's next pitch - an 82-mph slider - sailed out of his hand and toward Tuiasosopo's head, hitting him on the left shoulder as he ducked away from the pitch.

Orioles right-hander Jason Hammel had waited nearly a month to pitch in a game. It had been almost three years since he had last started in the postseason. Sunday's outing may not have been exactly as Hammel would have scripted it, but for the Orioles, it was worth the wait. The lanky right-hander did his job in the 7-2 loss, holding the New York Yankees to two runs in 5 2/3 innings and leaving with the scored tied 2-2 in the Orioles' first playoff game at Camden Yards in 15 years.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Before Jason Hammel could become an Opening Day starter, he had to revisit his simpler days of pitching. Before the crowds, before the expectations, before worrying about his career and where he fit in, he needed to go back to the time when the game was free of distractions, when baseball wasn't much more complicated that throwing a ball through a tire in his backyard as a kid. The 30-year-old right-hander will start the...