Early O's News...

Good morning everyone! Ok, I am a bit early, but I will be out and about today on travel and will not blog much today until later. The O's play the Marlins in Jupiter, FL today.

I didn’t have an entry last night because I had to go out, meet my friend near Baltimore and then head into Washington for an event.

Ok, first off, the Dodgers beat the O’s 4-2. Erik Bedard looked good, but Hayden Penn took the loss.

It looks like Jay Gibbons experiment at first base is over, and he’ll be the DH going into 2007. As well, it looks like Millar will be out with an injury until the end of the week, and Paul Shuey is feeling better. Spencer Fordin from Orioles.com has his weekly mailbag and ponders about the starting pitching, Josh Phelps, and a few other questions.

Amy Shipley of the Washington Post has news on Kevin Millar, Erik Bedard and roster cuts. Also, she has a great article on Ramon Hernandez and how’s he’s shaping up for the season, as it seemed he slowed down towards the end of the season because of the Mid-Atlantic sweltering heat in the summer. Amazingly, he played in 144 games, very, very high for a catcher – but, he can rake.

The Orioles made some roster cuts optioning pitcher Jim Johnson, outfielder Val Majewski and infielder Eider Torres to Triple-A Norfolk and reassigning pitcher Chris Waters, first baseman Brandon Sing, outfielder Luis Montanez and catcher Brian Bock to the minor league camp in Sarasota. The Orioles released pitcher Jose Acevedo andVictor Moreno left the team and returned home because of an illness in his family.

There’s Q&A with Corey Patterson. The Baltimore Examiner has a piece on Paul Bako.

More on an Old Friend: Former Oriole Catcher Javy Lopez, who had been competing to make Colorado's opening-day roster, was released Monday by the Rockies. He was hitting .375 in spring training, but threw zero runners out in eight attempts, which makes him useless behind the plate.