Orioles reliever Darren O'Day said he hopes Friday's rehabilitation outing at Double-A Bowie is the last one he'll have to make as his absence from a high hamstring strain suffered in May stretches into its eighth week.
"I think my delivery is in a good place," O'Day said Saturday, a day after he threw 16 pitches in a scoreless inning while striking out two and allowing one hit. "I was making a lot of good pitches and everything was moving like it should. Hopefully, I'm back in the next couple of days."
O'Day reported nothing but positives about the outing in Bowie, save for the jersey, which was a tribute to the late musician David Bowie.
"Wore a pretty bad jersey _ probably the worst jersey I've ever worn," he said. "But the outing was good, I felt good. I got to execute most of my pitches. It felt good to get back out there. I had a base runner, so that was good _ I've got to remember what that's like, pitching with guys on base, working through counts. It was altogether positive."
Manager Buck Showalter said the decision of when to activate O'Day would be a "baseball thing" with options being activating O'Day on Sunday, or letting him throw another rehab outing before being activated Monday. A decision on that was expected Saturday evening, Showalter said.
O'Day, who signed a four-year, $31 million contract this offseason, had made 22 appearances before the injury, with five home runs allowed in 20 innings causing his ERA to rise to 3.15 right before he went on the disabled list.
His return is seen as a boon to an Orioles bullpen that has struggled at times to deal with the consistently short starts turned in by the team's beleaguered starting rotation.
