TAMPA, FLA. — Orioles right-hander Mike Wright allowed five runs on five hits over 22/3 innings against the New York Yankees on Friday at Steinbrenner Field, but his third start of the spring wasn't as ugly as the line score.

Wright gave up two runs with two outs in the first inning on a soft fly ball that barely eluded the outstretched glove of second baseman Ryan Flaherty. He also gave up a run in a second inning that started with a broken-bat single by Didi Gregorius. The final two runs scored after he issued a pair of two-out walks in the third and left the game, which quickly unraveled during a brief relief outing by minor league camp call-up Mitch Horacek.

Still, Wright showed good stuff, striking out six batters against a representative Yankees lineup, and said he felt good about the way he threw the ball. But the five earned runs raised his spring ERA to 9.45.

“You saw the kind of hits they were getting — broken-bat jam shot that just went over second base,” Wright said. “I was executing my pitches well, even when there were two outs, and they just somehow scored runs off that. As far as I'm concerned, I felt pretty positive. It just [stinks] because yet again, we're losing.”

Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka was sharp, retiring the Orioles in short order in the first inning and allowing just an infield single to Hyun Soo Kim over three innings.

Alvarez could debut soon: Infielder-designated hitter Pedro Alvarez, who signed a one-year contract with the Orioles on Thursday, is almost ready to appear in exhibition games.

“I talked to him some today about when he's going to play,” manager Buck Showalter said Friday. “See how the next few days go, but I'm hoping Sunday or Monday.”

The Orioles do not want to rush Alvarez, who is eager to jump into the lineup. Alvarez has spent his first couple of days settling into the club's workout routine and learning defensive alignments and signals.

“He's wanting to go 100 miles an hour the first day,” Showalter said, “and you try to remind him he's not really behind. Just acclimating him to the team's defense, what the signals are for, that and trying to catch up. As long as, physically, we feel OK, the sooner he gets in the mix and gets in the baseball flow. It will take him a day or two. The memory bank will kick in. He was wanting to play today.”

For Bundy, time to perform: A day after allowing two runs on four hits in one inning of Thursday's game against the Yankees, Dylan Bundy conceded he needs to start pitching like the player who arrived in the Orioles organization as one of the game's highest-touted prospects.

“We're over the fact that my arm is healthy now,” Bundy said. “We all know that. Now it is getting results and going out there and competing, and also working on stuff. That was what I was doing, partly, yesterday. ... It's going out there now and competing and getting the job done.”

Bundy, in his third appearance of the spring, was leaving his fastball up in the strike zone too often. Four singles did him in; it wasn't particularly hard contact.

He was working on his breaking ball, a pitch that was highly regarded throughout baseball but took time to come back after his Tommy John elbow reconstruction in 2013.

“Off-speed, behind in the count, early in the count for strikes is what I was working on yesterday,” Bundy said. “I did that a couple of times, but just my fastball command wasn't there yesterday.”

The breaking balls, he said, were “decent.”

Around the horn: Catcher Caleb Joseph has been out of camp since Thursday because of flu symptoms. He might rejoin the team today if the medical staff is confident he isn't contagious. ... Nonroster infielder Ozzie Martinez, who suffered whiplash symptoms after a collision, could return to action today.

peter.schmuck@baltsun.com

jmeoli@baltsun.com

twitter.com/SchmuckStop

twitter.com/JonMeoli