Orioles left-hander T.J. McFarland might have been as surprised as anyone that he was still with the club on Saturday one day after throwing five scoreless innings in the Orioles' 4-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Friday night.
Since McFarland's longest outing in nearly two years made him unavailable to pitch over the next few days, and the Orioles faced a roster crunch in activating left-hander Brian Matusz on Saturday and right-hander Kevin Gausman to start on Monday, optioning McFarland to Triple-A Norfolk was one of the options the Orioles were considering.