Chris Davis is in the Orioles lineup tonight for the first time in five games, with Trey Mancini going back to right field. DJ Stewart moves to left field and Anthony Santander is in center. Rio Ruiz is at third base. Jonathan Villar is the shortstop and Hanser Alberto is playing second base. Left-hander Ty Blach has allowed 11 earned runs (12 total) and 12 hits in 9 1/3 innings in his two starts with the Orioles. He's walked six batters and struck out 10. Blach has never faced the Rays....

CHICAGO - Max Scherzer completed his typical day-after-start routine at Wrigley Field with no setbacks, so he's good to make his next scheduled start as planned. But the Nationals ace reiterated that he's not all the way to his pre-injury form and that he'll likely need to approach the rest of his season with far more caution than he has in the past. "I'm not out of the woods," he said prior to the Nationals' series opener against the Cubs. "I've got to still take care of this, got to...

The Orioles have made more changes in their scouting department today, including the removal of Dean Albany and Nathan Showalter, according to industry sources. They also are replacing director of baseball operations Tripp Norton, per sources. Norton was hired from the Tigers organization in March 1998 as assistant director of minor league operations. He moved into his present role in January 2012. Norton and Brian Graham, who was fired as director of player development, represented the Orioles...

It is our great good fortune to have Pete Kerzel as the co-producer of Hitting the Books. Pete organizes the written portion of the blog, for which I am deeply grateful. Earlier this summer, you met co-producer Olivia Witherite, introducing her favorite read, "The Book Thief." Today, Pete joins us with his insight on a classic: "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's book is more than a classic novel; it is a timeless work about a point in time, the subject matter of which rings true...

CHICAGO - The Nationals won't face a tougher turnaround this season than last night's game in Pittsburgh to this afternoon's game at Wrigley Field. We'll see how they look when they take the field in a few hours, but for what it's worth the entire lineup (sans pitcher) is the same as it was last night. Including Kurt Suzuki, who caught Max Scherzer last night and will catch Aníbal Sánchez today. This is an interesting stretch of games, because the Nationals will be facing four...

The Nationals sometimes see their prospects tip pitches in the minor leagues. But the Nats prefer to let their young pitchers go for a while before they adjust anything. They do not like to mess with mechanics, approach or glove positioning early on. Instead, they let them get into a good rhythm, establish some confidence, build on success, then make the minor tweaks to prevent hitters from seeing patterns between the fastball and their off-speed pitches. In the second part of our series, we...

SALISBURY, Md. - Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds manager Kyle Moore wasn't quite sure what to expect. He knew his first-place team would be adding a major talent when they got catcher Adley Rutschman this week. The hype and attention that has followed the player taken No. 1 overall in the June draft was now headed for the shore. "There was a little bit of holding your breath, like how is this going to go?" Moore said before Thursday's game. "But when you're getting a player like Adley, he...

Asked in his postgame media session Tuesday night about the Orioles tying the major league record for most home runs allowed in a season, manager Brandon Hyde interrupted his own answer to find out the total. He wasn't being coy. He wasn't pretending to be out of the loop. No one has to tell Hyde that his club surrenders home runs at an alarming rate. He watches from the dugout every night. But he hasn't been tracking the number. He had no idea that the 2016 Reds were the leaders in the...

PITTSBURGH - Some news and notes for your reading pleasure while I race to Chicago in time for this afternoon's series opener at Wrigley Field ... * If there was nothing else to take away from Max Scherzer's start Thursday night, it was this simple-but-important message both the right-hander and his manager stressed: They are going to continue to be cautious. That applied to Thursday's game, when Davey Martinez pulled his ace after only four innings and 71 pitches. It also applies to the...

The inevitable home run record was set tonight in the third inning. The watch is over. The only drama is in the final tally. Taking an early lead was the first order of business for the Orioles, but they also had to deal with their place in baseball history. The Rays' Austin Meadows lined a curveball from Asher Wojciechowski over the railing in front of the flag court in right field with two outs for the 259th homer surrendered by the Orioles this season. Move over 2016 Reds. There's a new...