Triple-A: Durham (Rays) 4, Norfolk Tides 1
Rehabbing major leaguer Dean Kremer gave this one a good shove, with 6.2 scoreless innings where he gave up only two hits and a walk, notching eight strikeouts along the way. This was an efficient outing as well, as it only took him 79 pitches to do all of that. This was his second outing of this rehab assignment. I’d guess he’ll get a couple more just to be sure he’s built back up all the way, but this was a great step along the way.
Unfortunately for the Tides, reliever Josh Walker managed to give
up three runs in a 1.1 inning stint, all of which scored in one swing on a three-run home run.
Tides batters were limited to just six hits across the whole game. Half of these were picked up by Enrique Bradfield, who managed to steal four bases across those three times on base. That’s fun. Creed Willems had two hits. Also fun. The Tides were 0-9 with RISP. That’s less fun. The Dylan Beavers rehab assignment is also not fun. He went 0-4 and is batting .091 in his games with Norfolk.
Former Orioles prospect Michael Forret tossed five scoreless innings for the Bulls.
Double-A: Harrisburg (Nationals) 8, Chesapeake Baysox 3
Cade Povich does not have as good of a rehab start to talk about as Kremer did. Povich, facing Double-A competition, was touched up for four runs (three earned) over only 3.2 innings. The minor leaguers got five hits and drew one walk against him.
This game also featured some bulk relief from Joseph Dzierwa. Not great, unfortunately, as three hits and three walks across three innings led to two runs scoring. He did strike out five guys, so there’s that.
Chesapeake’s offense did not have enough to overcome this, probably since they left ten men on base. One guy who was making good things happen was catcher Ethan Anderson, on base three times with a two-run home run, his 15th dinger of the season. My guy Aron Estrada took an 0-5. He’s still my guy.
High-A: Wilmington (Nationals) 8, Frederick Keys 6
Finally, some offense! And yet the Orioles affiliate still lost. Starting pitcher Yeiber Cartaya failed to get through the first inning, taking 38 pitches to get two outs and give up two runs. The Keys actually still led at this point, given that they’d scored three runs in their half of the first inning. That included the 21st home run of the season by the big man, Victor Figueroa, who leads the entire organization. Figueroa also had a double. He’s OPSing .955 through 64 games.
Though the game was tied in the fourth, Frederick scored again in the fifth and sixth to retake the lead before some unfortunate relief sent the game the wrong direction.
Last year’s third round pick RJ Austin, who’s usually an outfielder, made his second start at third base. Austin led off the game and he had two hits and two stolen bases. Ike Irish, serving as the first baseman, was on base three times and also stole a base.
Low-A: Fayetteville (Astros) 2, Delmarva Shorebirds 1 (5 innings)
This one was suspended after only five innings completed due to wet grounds in Fayetteville. Not a whole lot to say about that. The one Delmarva run scored with catcher Miguel Rodriguez hitting his first home run of the season across 19 games played for the Shorebirds and another eight for the FCL rookie team.
**
That’s four losses by the full-season affiliates. Bummer! If you want to feel a little bit better about the farm, the FCL Orioles team was victorious with an 11-2 score, and each of the DSL Orioles teams (Orange and Black) were also victorious. Orange blasted a Cleveland team for 23 hits.
Saturday’s Scheduled Games
- Norfolk: vs. Durham, 6:35. Starter: Nestor German
- Chesapeake: vs. Harrisburg, 6:35. Starter: Sebastian Gongora
- Frederick: at Wilmington, 6:05. Starter: Boston Bateman
- Delmarva: at Fayetteville, 7:05. Starter: Brayan Orrantia
