For anyone who was fearing the worst about Manny Machado's knee, there was some significant relief offered on Thursday night. Machado was in Los Angeles on Thursday to get a checkup on his knee to see whether he could resume baseball activities. The word was good:

No official word from Os on Manny Machado's left knee checkup 2day, but source tells me it went well & he's 6-8 weeks ahead of recovery norm — Dan Connolly (@danconnollysun) January 16, 2014

It's good to be young. With that kind of accelerated recovery schedule, assuming there are not any setbacks as he continues his recovery, Machado could be set to play on Opening Day instead of having to miss a few weeks of the season as was initially feared.

Machado played in 156 games for the Orioles last year before being hurt. By one fielding metric he was worth +35 runs just from his defense at third base. He was a big part of why the team did as well as they did. To have hope for 2014, they need him, and it looks like they will have him from day one of the season.