BALTIMORE (AP) -The Baltimore Orioles’ carousel at shortstop took another whirl Tuesday when the team placed Alex Cintron on the 15-day disabled list and recalled Freddie Bynum from Triple-A Norfolk.
Cintron strained his left hamstring running out an infield single Monday night against Kansas City. He was given the starting job after the Orioles designated Bynum for assignment on June 22.
Luis Hernandez, Bynum, Cintron and Brandon Fahey have all started at shortstop this season for the Orioles, who have had difficulty filling the position since trading Miguel Tejada to Houston in December. Fahey started Tuesday against the Royals, and will continue to play if he can hit well enough to back up his solid play in the field.
“We’ll see how he does. If he does well, I’ll play him. It’s that simple,” manager Dave Trembley said. “I’ll be honest with you, we didn’t get a whole lot of offense out of Freddie.”
Bynum was batting .192 before being designated for assignment. After clearing waivers, he went 6-for-15 in five games with Norfolk.
“I went down there and just played and had fun,” Bynum said. “I feel great. I felt comfortable, a lot better than I did here. Hopefully I can continue to do that up here.”
In the meantime, Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail will continue to search for depth at shortstop.
“It has been a difficult project,” Trembley said. “I know (MacPhail) has made that a definite thing for a lot of our pro scouts and major league scouts to go out and look. That’s a priority. It’s probably continuing a little bit quicker now because of what happened to Cintron last night.”
Cintron, who provided the Orioles will more offense at the position than his predecessors, hopes to make his initial stint on the disabled list a short one.
“I don’t think it something that’s going to take like two months or something, I think maybe 10 days and I’ll be ready, but we need somebody else because we have no other options,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be back for the second half.”
Cintron kiddingly suggested that Tejada put a curse on the position after leaving for Houston.
“I was telling (first base coach) Juan Samuel … ‘Tejada don’t want nobody to play there,”’ Cintron said.
The transfer of injured pitcher Danys Baez from the 15-day to the 60-day disabled list, and addition of Bynum gives the Orioles a full 40-man roster.
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