AL East Notes: Rays, Reimold, Castro

Jacoby Ellsbury will be kept out of baseball activities for about a week after an MRI revealed a strained oblique, though Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters (including ESPN New York’s Wallace Matthews) that the injury is “really mild.”  Though the timing of the injury puts Ellsbury’s status for Opening Day in question, Girardi thinks Ellsbury will be able to play when the Yankees open the season on April 5.  Here’s some more from around the AL East…

• The Rays are already facing injury issues within their starting rotation, and president of baseball ops Matt Silverman told reporters (including Roger Mooney of the Tampa Tribune) that the team will explore external options.  “Those are conversations that will ramp up in the next couple of weeks as teams figure out what they have, what they need and where there may be some surplus,” Silverman said.  If the Rays did acquire another starter, however, Silverman said that pitcher would likely go to Triple-A, as the team will be using its minor league depth to bolster the big league rotation.
• Nolan Reimold was offered minor league contracts by multiple teams but “there is no question [Baltimore] is where I wanted to end up,” he tells MASNsports.com’s Steve Melewski.  The long-time Oriole is back with his original team after spending 2014 in the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks organizations, and Reimold said that Orioles VP of baseball operations Brady Anderson played a key role in his decision to return to the O’s.
• Blue Jays righty Miguel Castro has looked so good in camp that, in the battle for an Opening Day bullpen role, “there’s not much doubt left that it’s Castro’s job to lose,” MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm writes.  Part of this has to due with a lack of relief depth for the Jays, though the 20-year-old Castro has impressed, allowing only two hits in 6 2/3 shutout innings over four outings.  Promoting Castro would be a bold move by Toronto, as Castro yet to pitch above the high-A ball level in his three pro seasons.