After receiving a scare when Matt Wieters’ MRI results were sent to Dr. James Andrews for further review, the Orioles received good news today, reports Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun (all Twitter links). After reviewing the MRI, Andrews informed the team that Wieters isn’t a candidate for surgery.
The belief, says Connolly’s source, is that the injury could have been preexisting, dating back to Wieters’ time as a pitcher in college, and he may have simply tweaked it recently. Connolly adds that Wieters won’t catch for awhile, but he is expected to be able to DH. Yahoo’s Jeff Passan tweets that the concern was over Wieters’ flexor mass, not his ulnar collateral ligament.
MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko speculated this morning that if Wieters were to be relegated to DH duties for awhile, the team would purchase the contract of Caleb Joseph to serve as Steve Clevenger’s backup. Baltimore has an open 40-man roster spot, which would make that scenario easier for the team. That they won’t be without Wieters’ bat has to come as a huge sigh of relief to an Orioles team that has already seen Chris Davis land on the disabled list after spending the season’s first month without Manny Machado. Wieters is hitting .341/.374/.560 with five homers through his first 23 games.
