Pitch

The Orioles made a move Thursday night that likely solved their Opening Day roster logjam - for a few days, anyway. Right-hander Chris Tillman was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a left abdominal strain, retroactive to March 22, the earliest date a transaction can be backdated this spring. That means Tillman is eligible to come off the DL on April 6 and pitch the fifth game of the season against the Minnesota Twins. It also means the Orioles have an extra roster spot to play with for the first four days of the season, which likely will allow Rule 5 left-hander T.J. McFarland and infielder Ryan Flaherty - two players who have been on the roster bubble since camp opened - to make the club.

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The stability of the Orioles starting rotation - in which four pitchers essentially had spots locked up  - and a Grapefruit League schedule that included a heavy dose of American League East opponents was possibly the best thing that could have happened to Orioles pitching prospect Kevin Gausman. In Gausman's first spring camp, he's had a chance to compile innings in major league games because the Orioles didn't want to pitch their established starters against division competition.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter hasn't announced the winner of the team's No. 5 starter competition, but this week's pitching schedule, which was announced Saturday, would indicate that right-hander Jake Arrieta appears to be in line for the spot. Arrieta, who was initially slated to start Tuesday's game against the Twins in Fort Myers, will now pitch in a minor league game at Twin Lakes Park on the same day. Pitching prospect Kevin Gausman will now start against the Twins. Over the past few weeks, Showalter has sent most of his entrenched starters to minor league games so that they won't be overexposed facing a bevy of AL East opponents and the Twins, who is the Orioles' home opener opponent.

For three of the four innings he pitched Friday, right-hander Steve Johnson showed why he remains in consideration to be the Orioles' fifth starter. The other inning, though, the 25-year-old St. Paul's alum would like to forget. In the Orioles' 6-3 road win against a Tampa Bay Rays split squad, Johnson retired the first eight batters he faced before temporarily losing control and walking the bases loaded in the third inning. Rays third baseman Evan Longoria followed with a sinking liner that left fielder Trayvon Robinson couldn't handle, resulting in a three-run double.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles right-hander Jake Arrieta and Pirates left-hander Jonathan Sanchez dueled into the late innings on Thursday night with neither starter allowing a run. Arrieta - who emerged as the front runner for the team's open No. 5 starter position - pitched six scoreless innings in an eventual scoreless 10-inning tie with Pittsburgh. Arrieta stranded five runners in scoring position and escaped two-on, one-out jams in both the fourth and fifth innings. Sanchez held the Orioles to two hits - both of them singles by third baseman Manny Machado - in five innings.

With several American League East opponents on the spring schedule, Orioles manager Buck Showalter has chosen to pitch some of his starters in minor league games at Twin Lakes Park. Left-hander Wei-Yin Chen got his work in during a Class-A game Monday. Right-hander Miguel Gonzalez threw five innings Wednesday at Twin Lakes. Next week, when the Orioles play back-to-back night games Wednesday and Thursday, Showalter said he will likely throw Jason Hammel and Chen in minor league games.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Earlier this spring, an Orioles official was talking causally about the competition for the fifth starter's spot. He mentioned Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, Brian Matusz, Jair Jurrjens. And then he paused. "I'm forgetting somebody," the official said, before slapping his hand on his head. "Steve Johnson. You CAN'T forget Steve Johnson. " Johnson, the 25-year-old Baltimore native and St. Paul's graduate, cracks a smile when the story is retold. "I've always been that guy. I was never a high prospect or anything like that.

DUNEDIN, Fla. - Buck Showalter took a seat in the visiting manager's office after the Orioles' 3-1 Grapefruit League win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday and flipped over his lineup card to reveal the notes he scribbled in red on the back. While Jake Arrieta threw 4 2/3 scoreless innings for his second straight scoreless spring outing, Showalter quickly pointed out that Arrieta had seven three-ball counts and threw just eight first-pitch strikes to the 19 batters he faced.

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Outwardly, Dylan Bundy made it clear that he came to his second big league spring training with the goal of winning a starting rotation spot with the Orioles. But despite the tremendous amount of upside and talent the organization's top prospects possesses, it quickly became clear that Bundy being sent to the minors was less a question of if than when. With two weeks remaining in spring training and Orioles pitchers beginning to get stretched out for the regular season, Grapefruit League innings are suddenly becoming scarce.

The way Anne Arundel Community College student Jesse Alton sees it, the world is one big elevator - hopefully, going up. Alton is among several students at the community college who will enter in the school's fourth annual Big Idea Elevator Pitch contest, a competition designed to test young entrepreneurs' ability to crystallize their business ideas and pitch them quickly and effectively. AACC officials looking to give students a boost in selling their ideas created the contest based on the "elevator pitch" concept, which says a person should be able to sell an idea in the time it takes to ride an elevator.