Orioles could place Bud Norris on DL

The Baltimore Orioles could really not use some more bad news. Coming off of a series-clinching victory against the Texas Rangers, the Orioles would rather just ride this one out with just one pitcher needing to go on the DL. They were not expecting to potentially need to replace two rotation members.

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In the bottom of the fifth inning, Norris took a line drive directly off of his pitching forearm from the bat of Mitch Moreland. As the ball trickled towards third baseman Manny Machado, too late for a play to be made, Norris started flexing his hand and wincing in pain. Trainers immediately came out to asses the damage, and Norris threw some warm-up pitches to test his strength out. All seemed well and the game resumed. Adrian Beltre, the first batter Norris faced after being hit, cranked a three-run opposite field homer to tie the game at that point, 5-5.

Initial reports from Britt Ghiroli of MLB.com say that the team isn’t terribly concerned about the forearm contusion, but MASN’s Roch Kubatko says that Norris is going to be re-evaluated and could potentially miss his next start. The Orioles already are pitching one man short in the rotation with Miguel Gonzalez likely to be placed on the disabled list with right side discomfort. Chris Tillman is being pushed up a couple of days to start in Gonzalez’ place on Thursday night and the team is already planning on recalling Kevin Gausman to fill the vacated rotation spot.

There is no word on who could take Norris’ spot if he ends up going down as well.