FORT MYERS, Fla. —Orioles left-hander Wade Miley was slated to go five innings in Monday afternoon’s Grapefruit League road game against the Boston Red Sox, but less than an hour before the scheduled first pitch, he was being driven back to Sarasota with lingering flulike symptoms.

His absence left the Orioles needing to fill his spot. They had brought just two other pitchers from big league camp, and the other eight were from minor league camp.

That made for a messy, drawn-out afternoon at JetBlue Park in what was the Orioles’ ugliest Grapefruit League game of the spring, a 7-4 loss.

Left-hander Vidal Nuno took Miley’s spot and failed to give the Orioles two innings, allowing three runs on four hits over 12/3 innings. Right-hander Oliver Drake also struggled, allowing three runs on five hits over 11/3 innings.

“Spring training is [about] getting work in, whether it’s the first inning or any inning, so it’s just falling behind in the count and just not finishing my two-strike pitches,” said Nuno, who said he found out he was starting about an hour before the game. “It was a little frustrating, but this is baseball. I’m going to keep my head up, look at film and keep on striving to be prepared every day.”

Nuno was making his second outing since returning from the World Baseball Classic, where he pitched just 12/3 innings for Mexico. He has allowed four earned runs over 22/3 innings in his two Grapefruit League outings since his return.

“There’s a little [transition] just being away, being in Arizona and traveling, coming back, the time difference,” Nuno said. “It’s one week down, so now I’m [making] strikes and getting accustomed to the time change, getting acclimated with all this preparation of being out in the field and getting these hitters out. …

He left Monday’s game after 50 pitches, having allowed five of the 10 hitters he faced to reach base and trailing 1-0 after Marco Hernandez’s double put runners at second and third with one out. Drake allowed both runners to score as part of a four-run second inning.

eencina@baltsun.com

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