SARASOTA, Fla. – Orioles pitching coach Drew French was eager to begin working with Tomoyuki Sugano even before the Japanese right-hander agreed to a $13 million contract. The deal became official and French approached interpreter Yuto Sakurai with a favor. Simple in nature but hugely meaningful. “I said I need to start learning his language a litt

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Before his team took the field for the first official full-squad workout of the spring, Davey Martinez gathered everyone together this morning for his first “Circle of Trust” meeting of the spring. No, there weren’t any camels. Nor any other live animals. Yet. (There’s still five weeks of camp to go, of course.) There was, h

SARASOTA, Fla. – Tomoyuki Sugano can work through a lineup and jet lag with similar ease. The first bullpen session for Sugano this morning lived up to the tremendous hype. He threw 35 pitches and exhibited his usual pinpoint control. Only the slider was omitted from a repertoire that consisted of a four-seam fastball, cutter, splitter, sinker and

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – James Wood sat out defensive drills on the first day of full-squad workouts, the Nationals left fielder hampered by left quadriceps tendinitis. Wood insisted it’s nothing serious, and he was able to take batting practice today with no apparent issues. The ailment has been bothering him since the offseason, though, enough to

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles are hoping to catch Albert Suárez in a bottle. They signed pitcher Rodolfo Martinez to a minor league contract on Nov. 1, the magnitude of it pretty much lost on the baseball world. He hadn’t been with an affiliated team since 2019 in the Giants system, with his travels taking him to the Dominican Republic, Mexico and J