Remember that time that J.J. Hardy was out of the Orioles' lineup with vague "side soreness"? Yeah, it seems like it was only yesterday. That's probably because it was only yesterday, and now that we're into today, it turns out that Hardy's side soreness may be the dreaded injured oblique.

O's manager Buck Showalter told MLB Network on Tuesday afternoon that Hardy is getting an MRI to find out how serious the injury might be. If it's serious enough that he's headed for an MRI, you can probably figure that he'll be out of the lineup again on Tuesday night, although that's not certain yet.

Injured obliques seem like a guaranteed missed month. That's what happened to Hardy when he had an injured oblique near the start of the 2011 season. Hardy played in six games and then missed the next month of the season. Of course, Hardy's already missed a good bit of time this year due to other injuries - not the most encouraging thing to have happen in the first year of a new three-year contract.

Hardy told Orioles reporters on Monday that the side soreness he has been experiencing in his left side "felt similar" to what he felt in 2011 that landed him on the disabled list back then. So it sounds like we should all prepare ourselves for Hardy to hit the disabled list, which likely explains the continued presence of a particular infielder on the 25-man roster.