Orioles minor league rundown for 5/8: Two wins, two losses

Norfolk Tides 4, Buffalo (Blue Jays) 3 (14 innings)

When yesterday began, T.J. McFarland was the scheduled Norfolk starting pitcher. He ended up pitching three innings for the big club instead. It was set up to be a Johnny Wholestaff kind of game even before Henry Urrutia's ninth inning RBI single tied the game and Nolan Reimold was thrown out at the plate trying to score on a Chris Parmelee double to send the game into extra frames.

The Tides came out on top in the end after holding the Bisons scoreless from the seventh inning onward. Reimold drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 14th. That scored Paul Janish, who led off the inning with a double. Michael Almanzar had three hits for Norfolk, while Urrutia had two hits and also walked twice.

Tides emergency starter Chris Jones, making his first start of the year, gave up two runs on five hits in 4.2 innings. Pat McCoy pitched the last three innings and got the win.

Richmond (Giants) 4, Bowie Baysox 2

One encouraging thing from this game is that Baysox starter Parker Bridwell pitched seven innings and had no walks against eight strikeouts. He took the loss because he allowed four runs (three earned) on eight hits, but hey, no walks! That's a big deal for Bridwell.

Bowie hitters only had five hits for the whole game. That's a bit less encouraging. Catcher Chris O'Brien hit a two run home run in the seventh inning to bring across the only Baysox runs in the game.

Frederick Keys 8, Potomac (Walgreens) 7

Potomac's starter in this game was Lucas Giolito, who's among the more hyped minor league pitchers in baseball right now. As far as the Keys on Friday were concerned, he wasn't anything. They tagged him for five runs in his 4.1 innings of work and have left his season ERA sitting at 10.38.

The game was a wild one and the Keys needed all of those runs. Potomac grabbed a run each in the eighth and ninth inning to make things interesting and when the game ended, the tying run was in scoring position and the go-ahead run was on base.

Frederick had 15 hits, including three-hit games from outfielders Brenden Webb and Tucker Nathans, both of whom are batting over .300 for their season.

Asheville (Rockies) 5, Delmarva Shorebirds 1

The good news is the Shorebirds only gave up runs in one inning... the bad news is that they gave up a five-spot in that one inning and even further bad news is that they only had two hits in the whole game. Calvert Hall product Alex Murphy drove in the lone Shorebirds run. He is now batting .299/.373/.485 for the season. That'll do.

You can view the complete box scores here.

Saturday's Probable Pitchers

Norfolk: Zach Davies

Bowie: Branden Kline

Frederick: Jarett Miller

Delmarva: Matthew Grimes