Buffalo ruins Hayden Penn's return with Tides

NORFOLK

Not much went right for hard-luck Hayden Penn after his Opening Day start for the Norfolk Tides last year .

One week after throwing the team’s first pitch at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre , he went on the disabled list with pain in his right forearm. He learned he had bone spurs, and by the end of the season, would only make 10 appearances. It was yet another setback for the 23-year-old pitcher .

Still, all the stumbling blocks didn’t prevent Penn from returning to a mound in a Triple-A stadium in his team’s season debut.

This year, Penn was at Harbor Park . And just like his star-crossed career, his first start didn’t go according to plan. He barely lasted more than four innings and was tagged with the loss after yielding six earned runs in the Tides’ 9-4 defeat to Buffalo.

“There are 30 more starts to go,” Penn said. “The big thing I am is healthy. I look forward to a big year. This was just start No. 1 .”

For Penn, who at one point seemed to be on the fast track to join the Orioles’ rotation, there is still plenty of hope. He was only the 29th player in the history of Baltimore’s franchise to make his debut before the age of 21. Even this year, he was in contention to become the Orioles’ fifth starter or a long reliever.

“He’s been around a while,” Tides manager Gary Allenson said. “He’s only 23. People don’t realize that.”

Penn, however, was optioned to Norfolk in mid-March – a mere 15 days after the minor league spring training camp began.

He’s trying to fight his way back to the major leagues. But outings like Thursday’s won’t help . In the first inning, leadoff hitter Josh Barfield singled and in an attempt to pick him off, Penn fired the ball past first baseman Oscar Salazar.

Barfield scooted to second base on the error and the trouble had begun. It only got worse when Jordan Brown and Ryan Mulhern hit consecutive singles and Aaron Herr smacked a scorching line-drive double that scored two runners as Buffalo pushed ahead 3-0.

Soon after, it seemed as if Penn had recovered from the initial onslaught. But Buffalo chased Penn in the fifth inning, piecing together another rally that the put the game out of reach.

“He made a couple of mistakes and pitched backwards,” Allenson said. “He’s just going to have to work his way back, little by little.”

Penn took the loss in stride. After all, he’s been through much worse, like the emergency appendectomy he underwent the day he was scheduled to join the Orioles in Seattle in May 2006

“It didn’t go the way I wanted to do,” Penn said. “But I just want to stay as healthy as possible. And then we’ll go from there.”

Rainer Sabin, (757) 446-2367, rainer.sabin@pilotonline.com