Orioles minor league week in review: Kjerstad continues to rake, Aberdeen runs wild

Elsewhere, the Baysox pulled off a near-sweep while an unheralded Delmarva hurler won Pitcher of the Week honors.

We’ve just wrapped up the second full week of play for most of the Orioles’ affiliates — and the third for Norfolk — and it’s shaping up to be another fun year on the O’s farm. Let’s jump right into the action from the past week in the Birds’ minors.

Triple-A Norfolk Tides

• Past week: 2-4 at Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Marlins)
• Coming week: vs. Gwinnett Stripers (9-11, Braves)
• Season record: 9-12, eighth place (4.5 GB) in International League East

It seems like a distant memory that the Tides were such darlings of the minors that prominent writers were legitimately wondering whether they could beat some major league teams. Norfolk has since suffered a precipitous freefall, suffering a 10-game losing streak that finally ended this past Friday. They’re only one game ahead of the last-place club in their 10-team division.

The Tides’ once-potent offense has stagnated since the loss of Jackson Holliday from the lineup. Kyle Stowers in particular has come crashing back to earth after a red-hot spring training and a season-opening eight-game hit streak. He’s just 7-for-43 (.163) with no homers since then, and this week he struggled to a .520 OPS and struck out 10 times without drawing a walk.

In happier news, the three best prospects in the Norfolk lineup — Coby Mayo (#3 in Camden Chat’s composite rankings), Heston Kjerstad (#5), and Connor Norby (#7) — all hit well this week. Mayo clubbed two more homers and drove in eight, while Norby reached base 11 times this week, but it was once again Kjerstad who tore the cover off the ball, collecting three home runs and three RBIs to increase his league-leading totals in both categories. This kid is insane, man. And with Austin Hays landing on the injured list yesterday, Kjerstad is getting a well-deserved promotion to the majors today.

On the mound, lefty Cade Povich (#9) continues to be the Birds’ breakout pitching prospect. He tossed another 5.1 scoreless innings this week and struck out nine, lowering his ERA through four starts to a minuscule 0.83. He’s striking out 13.7 batters per nine innings, his WHIP is a tidy 0.74, and opponents are batting just .100 against him. He’s also slashed his walk rate nearly a full point from last year, though his four free passes this week indicate his control issues aren’t fully behind him. It seems certain we’ll see Povich arrive in the majors sometime this year, probably sooner rather than later.

It’s been more of a struggle for fellow pitching prospect Chayce McDermott (#10), who issued another five walks in 8.2 innings this week (though he did strike out 13). The right-hander is walking nearly a batter per inning with 20 in 20.2 frames. Meanwhile, veteran Orioles Kyle Bradish and John Means made rehab starts for Norfolk this week. Bradish surrendered four runs and nine baserunners in 3.1 innings, while Means faced seven batters and retired only one of them, coughing up two dingers. I’m, uh, going to hope they’re just shaking off rust.

Norfolk season stats

Double-A Bowie Baysox

• Past week: 5-1 vs. Altoona Curve (Pirates)
• Coming week: at Richmond Flying Squirrels (7-8, Giants)
• Season record: 9-6, second place (0.5 GB) in Eastern League Southwest

It was a great week for the Baysox, who had no trouble with the Curve in a near-sweep. The Bowie offense averaged more than six runs per game, led by the hot-hitting quartet of Dylan Beavers (#8), Jud Fabian (#14), Frederick Bencosme (#25, tied) and Billy Cook, each of whom contributed eight or more hits. Fabian had the biggest, a walkoff grand slam with two outs in the ninth on Saturday.

Beavers swatted his first two homers of the year, and Bencosme added a pair as well. With three dingers this year, Bencosme has already matched his career high for a single season and is slugging .615 in 13 games. It’s a surprising show of power from the 21-year-old infielder who was previously known only as a contact hitter. Samuel Basallo homered as well, but it was an otherwise quiet week for the Orioles’ #2 prospect.

There were plenty of standout performances on the pitching side, including right-hander Kyle Brnovich — the second best Kyle B. acquired in the Dylan Bundy trade — who fired five scoreless innings and struck out eight. Brnovich retired 15 of the 16 batters he faced, a two-out single in the first inning his only blemish. Brnovich, who pitched two games for Norfolk in 2022 before Tommy John surgery cost him a year of development, might soon get a promotion back to that level.

Seth Johnson (#11), part of the Trey Mancini trade return, and Carlos Tavera, the Orioles’ fifth-round pick in the 2021 draft, each worked four scoreless innings this week. Tavera’s outing was particularly impressive, as he retired all 12 batters he faced, striking out seven of them. It was a night and day difference from his only previous outing this year, in which five of the six batters reached base.

Bowie season stats

High-A Aberdeen IronBirds

• Past week: 2-4 at Hudson Valley Renegades (Yankees)
• Coming week: vs. Jersey Shore BlueClaws (8-7, Phillies)
• Season record: 6-9, last place (5.0 GB) in South Atlantic League North

It was a quiet week at the plate for the IronBirds, who batted a collective .194 with a .623 OPS. The best of the bunch was Mac Horvath (#12), who was only 4-for-17 but drew seven walks, giving him a .458 OBP for the week. But while the IronBirds didn’t hit much, they ran wild when they did get on, racking up an astounding 24 stolen bases in six games to more than double their league-leading total to 45. They were caught only four times in 28 attempts, an impressive 86% success rate. The Orioles’ 2023 first- and third-round picks, Enrique Bradfield Jr. (#6) and Tavian Josenberger, swiped five apiece without being caught. Matthew Etzel and Reed Trimble each had three, and Horvath added a pair as well.

Only one pitcher among the Orioles’ top 20 prospects is currently on the Aberdeen roster: right-hander Jackson Baumeister (#15, tied), a competitive balance pick selected #63 overall from Florida State last year. His outing this week was distressingly wild, as he walked three batters and plunked three more in 3.1 innings. The IronBirds have quite a few pitchers who are good at limiting hits but not so good at limiting walks. Take Juan De Los Santos and the delightfully named Teddy Sharkey, who, between the two of them, pitched 7.2 no-hit innings this week but walked seven.

Aberdeen season stats

Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds

• Past week: 1-4 at Down East Wood Ducks (Rangers)
• Coming week: vs. Fredericksburg Nationals (9-6)
• Season record: 2-12, last place (9.5 GB) in Carolina League North

Oof. The season has only just begun and Delmarva is already hopelessly out of the first-half playoff race, winning just two of 14 games. Offense has been hard to come by for the Shorebirds, who topped three runs only once in this series and have the worst team OBP (.271) and OPS (.550) in the 12-team Carolina League. Their pitching hasn’t been much better, either, with a 4.51 ERA that ranks as second-worst (but worlds better than last-place Myrtle Beach, who somehow have a 6.84 ERA and 109 walks in 14 games, ouch).

Outfielder Thomas Sosa (#27, tied) was the standout among the hitters this week, leading the team with seven hits, five doubles, and four walks. The Orioles signed Sosa out of the Dominican as part of their 2021-22 international class. The jewel of that class, outfielder Braylin Tavera (#15, tied), has had a tough go of it in his Delmarva debut. After a 3-for-17 week, he’s batting just .133 with a .376 OPS in his first 12 games.

The Orioles’ top international pitching prospect, lefty Luis De León (#13), was the victim of bad defense this week. In a three-inning start, he gave up five runs — but only one was earned. A couple of lesser known right-handers excelled, though. Michael Forret, a 14th-round pick, worked five scoreless innings with three hits and eight strikeouts. And Trey Gibson, signed as an undrafted free agent last year out of Liberty University, did stellar work in a long-relief outing. He pitched five scoreless, hitless innings and struck out eight, with a walk his only blemish. For his efforts, Gibson was named the Carolina League Pitcher of the Week.

Delmarva season stats

**

Last week, Cade Povich was the runaway winner of our first player of the week poll of 2024, earning more than half the vote in a four-candidate field. Povich had another scoreless start this week, but his four walks eliminate him from a repeat candidacy. Sorry, them’s the rules. But we’ve got several other players worthy of consideration. Who gets your vote?