It was a clean sweep on the farm, as Norfolk’s two runs were for the only ones scored by any O’s affiliate.
Triple-A: Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies) 4, Norfolk Tides 2
First things first: Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg continue to swing hot bats on their rehab assignments. Batting in the top two spots in the lineup, the duo combined for three hits and two walks, including a Westburg double. I look forward to seeing them both back in an Orioles lineup that has been looking pretty threadbare.
The only other two Tides hits came from Jud Fabian, who crushed his 10th homer of the year against former Orioles prospect Seth Johnson. Samuel Basallo picked up an RBI on a bases-loaded walk. Norfolk had several scoring opportunities but went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
Tides starter Cameron Weston went four innings and gave up three runs, and reliever Houston Roth gave up a dinger to veteran major leaguer Christian Arroyo. Corbin Martin had a nice outing, working two perfect innings with three strikeouts.
Double-A: Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets) 2, Chesapeake Baysox 0
In a rain-shortened game, the Baysox had only six innings to bat and couldn’t scratch across a run in any of them. Binghamton starter Zach Thornton threw an abbreviated complete game, striking out eight in his six shutout innings. A Frederick Bencosme double and Adam Retzbach single were Chesapeake’s only hits. Enrique Bradfield Jr. and Creed Willems each went 0-for-2.
Levi Wells was the hard-luck loser after holding the Rumble Ponies to one run in 4.2 innings. That run scored in the third inning on a wild pitch. Reliever Juan De Los Santos was in the middle of an ugly outing — walking all three batters he faced, and allowing a run to score on a wild pitch — before the rain mercifully cut things short in the top of the seventh.
High-A: Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets) 3, Aberdeen IronBirds 0
Another game, another rain-shortened shutout loss to a Mets affiliate. This one went only five innings before Mother Nature intervened. Aberdeen actually out-hit Brooklyn, 5-4, but couldn’t turn those baserunners into any runs. Leadoff man Austin Overn had two of the hits, including a double. He also stole a base. Vance Honeycutt was 0-for-2 with a strikeout.
Starter Cohen Achen worked 3.1 innings and gave up two runs, though only one was earned, thanks to a pair of errors by second baseman Ryan Stafford. Achen had quite a bit of traffic on the bases, allowing three hits and four walks.
A look at the lineups reveals why the IronBirds are 19-30 and the Cyclones are 34-15. Aberdeen had only one player in its lineup tonight with a season OPS over .700 (Anderson De Los Santos at .715), while Brooklyn had five hitters with an OPS of .800 or better.
Low-A: Hickory Crawdads (Rangers) 10, Delmarva Shorebirds 0 — suspended (4 inn.)
This game didn’t get past the fourth inning before the rains came, mainly because it took nearly two hours just to get that far. I suppose that’s what happens when you give up eight runs in the top of the first. Delmarva starter Chipper Menard had a rough start in which he retired only one of the first five batters before getting ejected by umpire Reid Hoover. That came immediately after an at-bat in which several pitches in the strike zone were called balls, leading to a walk.
Bryan Bautista replaced Menard and promptly did the following: walk, hit by pitch, walk, wild pitch, hit by pitch. And that was all within his first four batters. A Maxton Martin two-run double made it an eight-spot for the Crawdads in the inning. The Shorebirds offense had too large a deficit to overcome but didn’t put up much of a fight anyway, getting shut out for four innings. The team’s best hitter, catcher Yasmil Bucce, struck out twice.
Saturday’s scheduled games
- Norfolk: vs. Lehigh Valley, 4:05 PM (doubleheader). Gm 1 starter: Trevor Rogers (0-2, 8.10); Gm 2 starter: TBD
- Chesapeake: vs. Binghamton, 6:35 PM. Starter: Nestor German (1-1, 4.22)
- Aberdeen: at Brooklyn, 6:00 PM. Starter: TBD
- Delmarva: vs. Hickory, 7:05 PM. Starter: Yeiber Cartaya (0-3, 7.04)