Rich Dubroff

Tommy Milone will start Opening Day for Orioles

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde announced that Tommy Milone will replace John Means as the teams’ starter for their opener at Boston’s Fenway Park on Friday.

Means is suffering from arm fatigue.

Hyde said that Milone, who has a 9.33 ERA in four career starts at Fenway would chosen over another veteran left-hander, Wade LeBlanc, who has a 10.57 ERA in two starts in Boston because he was pitching on just one extra day of rest.

LeBlanc threw a simulated game earlier Tuesday at Oriole Park.

“I just didn’t want to take the chance of bringing somebody back on short rest,” Hyde said in a video conference call.

Milone, who like LeBlanc, was on a minor league contract until being added to the 40-man roster on Saturday, will pitch on five days’ rest.

“It was a great feeling to be able to tell him,” Hyde said. “His reaction was priceless. He was just really excited.”

In nine major league seasons, the 35-year-old Milone, who has pitched for six other major league teams, has a career record of 50-47.

Rich Dubroff

Rich Dubroff grew up in Brooklyn as a fan of New York teams, but after he moved to Baltimore, quickly adopted the Orioles and Colts. After nearly two decades as a freelancer assisting on Orioles coverage for several outlets, principally The Capital in Annapolis and The Carroll County Times, Dubroff began covering the team fulltime in 2011. He spent five years at Comcast SportsNet’s website and for the last two seasons, wrote for PressBoxonline.com, Dubroff lives in Baltimore with his wife of more than 30 years, Susan.

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  • Little surprised it wasn’t Wojciechowski. He pitched well against Boston last year. Was looking back over your intra squad summaries, didn’t see Wojciechowski pitching. Has he been throwing regularly? Just curious

  • Mayday Milone?

    Well I certainly have the warm and fuzzys with Hyde's choice considering Mayday gives up 1.2 runs less per nine than Leblanc in Beantown! Very comforting.

    And might I add that this was a awesomely shrewd offseason pickup by Elias.

  • Means has a fatigued arm, now Harvey, what did they actually do during their “break”?...go O’s...

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Rich Dubroff

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