SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Ubaldo Jimenez pitched two perfect innings in his debut with the Baltimore Orioles in their 15-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday.
Jimenez, who signed a four-year, $50 million contract with the Orioles on Feb. 19, struck out three.
“I feel good, but I know I’m not 100 percent like most of the pitchers are right now. They’re probably a week ahead of me, but I feel fine. I’m getting there. I’ve been doing some routines that they want me to do in order to get ready for the season, and that’s what I’m doing,” Jimenez said.
Nick Markakis was 4 for 4, including two doubles and a triple. Matt Wieters, J.J. Hardy, Ryan Flaherty and Jemile Weeks each drove in two runs. Hardy had three hits.
A.J. Burnett allowed six runs on seven hits in three innings for the Phillies, who are now 1-8-1 in spring training. Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez gave up four runs in one inning.
“We’ve got some work to do,” Philadelphia manager Ryne Sandberg said. “Just a lot of little things. The wind blowing, players unaware of it, bobbles on the infield, cutoff throws coming in - yeah, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Baltimore’s Miguel Gonzalez sustained a bruised left leg when he was hit by a line drive from Cameron Rupp in the fifth.
STARTING TIME
Phillies: Burnett, who signed a one-year, $16 million contract with the Phillies last month was tagged in a four-run third when 10 batters came to the plate.
“I felt like I put myself in good positions. I put myself in decent positions to put guys away,” Burnett said.
He said his team’s record in spring training isn’t reflective of its talent.
“You’ve got to progress, find the positives and work from there. Our record doesn’t reflect on our attitude and our thinking,” Burnett said.
Sandberg says Burnett will have to get better.
“He was a little erratic with a couple of breaking pitches he tried to get strikeouts on. That’s something he wants to get better at. Then it was rough after that,” Sandberg said.
Orioles: Pitching coach Dave Wallace was impressed with Jimenez’s outing.
“It was great to get the first one out of the way. He was pretty efficient, 25 pitches in two innings,” Wallace said.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Orioles: Third baseman Manny Machado will be re-evaluated in the next 10 days in his recovery from last October’s left knee surgery.
If Machado is cleared from Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who performed the surgery, manager Buck Showalter will have to decide if he’ll be ready by the March 31 opener.
“Everything he’s supposed to be able to do at this point, he’s doing. He’s not ahead of schedule. He’s not behind schedule. He’s on schedule,” Showalter said.
Gonzalez departed when he was hit by Rupp’s liner. Bench coach John Russell said he didn’t think Gonzalez was badly hurt.
“He looked like he walked off the field fine, so I would say he’s going to be all right,” Russell said.
PAYING THEIR RESPECTS
Showalter led a group of 30 Orioles players, coaches and staffers who left midgame to take a charter flight to pay their respects in Virginia to the team’s late Director of Public Relations, Monica Barlow, who died on Feb. 28 at 36.
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