Major League

The Orioles have lost so often and in so many ways in recent years at Rogers Centre that squandering myriad offensive opportunities and blowing a late lead like they did to the Toronto Blue Jays in Sunday's 6-5 defeat seem rather pedestrian. These Orioles, though, are seemingly a creative bunch, and they added a new wrinkle Sunday afternoon: Allowing their former top pitching prospect to hit the first homer of his big league career in a game-changing moment. With the Orioles clinging to a one-run lead in the seventh, starter Tommy Hunter served up a 400-foot-plus shot to Adam Loewen, the Orioles' first-rounder in 2002 who is making his comeback as an outfielder after elbow injuries derailed his mound career.

The nomadic professional baseball career of Orioles left-hander Dana Eveland has seen its share of spring training sites. When the 28-year-old pitcher arrived at the Ed Smith Stadium Complex last weekend, it marked Eveland's seventh stint with a big league organization in as many years. The Orioles hope Eveland, acquired in a trade with the Dodgers during this offseason's winter meetings for a pair of prospects, has found his form. Eveland - on the other hand - hopes he's found a home.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter knows the numbers don't add up. The Orioles were successful in strengthening their depth this offseason, but the glut of outfielders will make it difficult to keep all of them in the organization. “You guys have done the math,” Showalter told reporters Tuesday. Before Tuesday's Grapefruit League game in Fort Myers, the team reassigned outfielder Lew Ford to minor league camp with the hope that he will be in the mix for Triple-A at-bats, but knowing that there are only so many outfield spots in Norfolk.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - In this, baseball's steroid spring, it was only a matter of time before somebody started naming names. Superstars Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were among a group of professional athletes who allegedly received illegal steroids and human growth hormone from one of the figures indicted in the BALCO grand jury investigation, according to information given to federal investigators and obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The Orioles added their latest reclamation project Wednesday, agreeing to terms with first baseman Conor Jackson on a minor league deal with an invitation to major league spring training, executive vice president Dan Duquette announced. Jackson, a 2003 first-round draft pick of the Diamondbacks, put together three straight seasons of at least a .294 average, .368 on-base percentage, 12 homers and 60 RBIs from 2006 to 2008 with Arizona. But he's played in more than 60 big league games in a season just once since 2008, shuffling between the majors and minors within four different organizations during that span.

The Chicago White Sox are the talk of the major leagues, with the best record in the American League and a young, exciting team. So why isn't anyone going to see them? The Oakland Athletics are in playoff contention for the second year in a row with an appealing club that should be packing them in at Network Associates Coliseum. But attendance has been so disappointing the franchise wants to move farther away from the cross-bay rival San Francisco Giants. Orioles owner Peter Angelos looks at those situations and serves them up as proof that baseball promoters in Washington and Northern Virginia should not try to wedge a second team into the Baltimore/Washington market.

The Orioles made a U-turn in their managerial search yesterday, deciding Grady Little was worth a closer look, after all. Four days after getting fired by the Boston Red Sox, Little will become the eighth candidate to interview with the Orioles, who hope to name a new manager by late next week. Internally, the Orioles were considering Little as a potential candidate throughout the World Series, when it seemed inevitable the Red Sox would fire him after their devastating defeat in the American League Championship Series.

The Orioles continued to add first base depth on Wednesday, signing Travis Ishikawa, as well as left-handed relievers Daniel Schlereth and Zach Braddock, to minor league contracts with invitations to major league spring training. Ishikawa, 29, recorded a .257/.329/.428 line in 94 games (49 starts) last season with the Brewers, hitting four homers and 30 RBIs in 174 plate appearances. He spent the previous three seasons as a mostly part-time player with the Giants. The left-handed hitting Ishikawa hit .266/.333/.416 and 18 of his 19 career homers against right-handed pitching.

PHILADELPHIA -- Phillies first baseman Jim Thome looks back at a difficult spring and wonders, like everyone else, how he got from there to here. There was the broken fingertip in March that cast the early part of his 2004 season in doubt. Then he sprained his left hand making a tag in April and strained a ligament in his right index finger just for bad measure. If hitting is all in the hands, Thome and the Phillies had no right to expect him to keep putting up the kind of offensive numbers that have long made him one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball, and yet he has done that and more.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The Orioles spent a good part of spring training sorting through their roster for a dependable pitcher to fill the fifth spot in the starting rotation, and they were not alone. The fifth-starter search has been an industrywide rite of spring ever since the late-'60s New York Mets expanded their rotation from four arms to five to accommodate a large group of talented young pitchers. Five-man rotations caught on in a hurry, but the talent pool that supplies Major League Baseball with pitching never really caught up with the demand for effective starters.