Kam Mickolio

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Catcher Matt Wieters, the fifth overall pick in last year's amateur draft, and four other players were reassigned to the Orioles' minor league complex yesterday. Wieters and pitchers Chris Tillman, Esteban Yan, Kam Mickolio and Ryan Keefer will report to Sarasota. Wieters is expected to begin the 2008 season at Single-A Frederick. "It's been a great experience for me," he said. "There's nothing like it, where you get to come and learn for so long. With Ramon [Hernandez]

Andy MacPhail isn't promising any miraculous turnarounds in the Orioles' minor league system this season, but the president of baseball operations is guaranteeing that the team's future players "will get a lot of attention." MacPhail said: "I don't think there's anything more important to this franchise than to start to have a reliable supply of players come up through our system. We are going to do what we can to be as good at that as we can." MacPhail believes the Orioles are at a point where "it's more than just talking.

BOSTON - As if things weren't going badly enough for the Orioles, they now face health questions about their two most effective pitchers. Jeremy Guthrie, the team's only reliable starter, was scratched from making this afternoon's start against the Boston Red Sox because of a tired right shoulder. That will force Orioles manager Dave Trembley to start one of his relievers in the series finale and try to piece the game together. Jim Johnson, one of the Orioles' few reliable relievers and the team's closer with George Sherrill on the disabled list, is also experiencing right shoulder problems and will have a magnetic resonance imaging taken Friday.

Hours after learning he would be leading the Orioles again in 2009, Dave Trembley witnessed something he had never seen before on a baseball diamond. This is a guy who rode minor league buses for 20 years and managed thousands of bush league games. A guy who on Aug. 22, 2007 - the last time his job security was publicly supported by his front office - watched his Orioles allow 30 runs in one game. And yet the eighth inning of last night's rain-soaked, 11-2 loss to the Oakland Athletics - a defeat that was the Orioles' seventh consecutive and 14th in their past 16 games - made history for Trembley.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Aubrey Huff gripped a bat and a ball for the first time since late September yesterday, hoping that months of inactivity again result in one of the finest offensive seasons in the American League. Huff, who reported to Fort Lauderdale Stadium yesterday with a bleached blond hairdo and several new tattoos, acknowledged his offseason preparation basically amounted to his doing very little. And that was by design. After the 2007 season, Huff had hernia surgery, which prevented him from doing any baseball-related activity until he arrived at spring training.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -Right-hander Adam Eaton got off to a rocky start in his competitive debut as an Oriole yesterday, but he pulled himself together after giving up four hits in the first inning and declared the afternoon a success. He's off to a late start, but he said he feels pretty good about his chances of opening the season in the starting rotation after completing three innings with just 30 pitches and throwing in the bullpen afterward. "I would think so," he said. "All the signs I'm getting are that there is a spot for me. That feels good.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -The Orioles continued to whittle down the candidates for their rotation Wednesday, informing Danys Baez that if he makes the team, it will be out of the bullpen. The decision leaves five candidates - Hayden Penn, Adam Eaton, Mark Hendrickson, Alfredo Simon and Brian Bass - competing for three spots. "I can't tell you where he's going to pitch in the bullpen, but I know we're going to try to do the best we can to not overuse him and bring him along," Orioles manager Dave Trembley said.

SEATTLE - - The Erik Bedard the Orioles were supposed to face last year was entirely different from the one the club is scheduled to oppose for the first time tonight at Safeco Field. The 30-year-old left-hander, who was the Orioles' ace before they traded him to the Seattle Mariners on Feb. 8, 2009, in a deal that landed them five players and accelerated their rebuilding process, is both happier and healthier in his second season in Seattle. And that has ultimately showed on the mound, where Bedard has gone 3-2 with a 2.48 ERA and struck out 54 in 54 1/3 innings.

PITCHERS Matt Albers, B- Solid middle guy has been up and down twice this year but gets extra credit for pitching through a torn labrum. Danys Baez, B Has lost some momentum of late but has pitched well for a guy who looked like the odd man out in spring training. Brian Bass, B- Got off to a rocky start but has bounced back to secure his place among the top 10 all-time major leaguers named after fish. Brad Bergesen, A Quite simply, the most consistent and productive starting pitcher in the rotation.

A month into his audition for the Orioles' long-term closer role, Jim Johnson has learned quickly about the difficulty of pitching the ninth inning. "I make good pitches and they get hit, and I make bad pitches and they get hit," Johnson said. "I give up runs at the worst time right now. That's just part of pitching at the end of the game." In Wednesday's 4-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, Johnson surrendered a game-tying homer to Ben Zobrist, blowing his second save in eight opportunities since taking over the closer's spot from the traded George Sherrill.