"When Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail signed free-agent corner infielders Garrett Atkins and Miguel Tejada this offseason, he strayed slightly from the philosophy that he had preached since his arrival.

Wanting to upgrade his team's lineup against left-handed pitching, MacPhail chose offense over defense and left the team's infield play as a major question mark heading into the 2010 season.

Tejada, a former shortstop, has never played at third base in his big league career. Atkins has primarily been a third baseman, his time at first limited to 105 games over his seven-year big league tenure.

"We think that Garrett and Miguel represented as good as we were going to do on those corners for right-handed hitters," said MacPhail, whose mantra has been to rebuild the Orioles by focusing on pitching and defense. "Miggi has to make the transition from short to third, and I think he's coming along fine. Our reports on Garrett indicate that he's very capable of playing first base."

Both Atkins and Tejada have looked comfortable during the first couple of weeks of spring training, but how well they acclimate themselves at their new positions will go a long way toward determining what kind of defensive team the Orioles will be.

The Orioles struggled defensively for much of last season, ranking 26th in team defensive efficiency, which measures the percentage of balls put into play that were turned into outs. Despite saying that he erased every memory from last season the day he arrived at spring training, Orioles manager Dave Trembley said that defense is one of the areas in which the players have to improve.

"I don't care who is out there. In order to win, you can't give teams four and five outs. Usually, that is a direct result on how well you play the infield," Trembley said. "We're going to have to catch the ball. We don't have a power pitching staff that is going to recover. More times than not, giving teams four and five outs, we'll pay the price."

On days when Felix Pie starts in left field over Nolan Reimold - and there will be plenty of those early as Reimold recovers from Achilles' tendon surgery - the Orioles will field one of the best defensive outfields in the game. Center fielder Adam Jones won a Gold Glove last season, and right fielder Nick Markakis probably deserved one the year before that. The more games the speedy and strong-armed Pie played in left last season, the better he looked."