Orioles minor league recap 6/23: Kremer shines for Bowie

Buffalo (Blue Jays) 3, Norfolk Tides 0

The constant shuffling of the Orioles rotation and bullpen has left the Tides with a bit of a patchwork pitching staff, too. Considering that they were going with a bullpen game, it could have gone worse for them. Recently-promoted Zach Muckenhirn has stumbled in his first Triple-A action, allowing two runs in 0.2 innings here, with two hits and three walks allowed.

It didn’t really matter how well the Tides staff did or didn’t pitch since their offense mustered just two hits and one walk in the game. Ryan Mountcastle struck out twice but did get one of the team’s hits.

Bowie Baysox 5, Harrisburg (Walgreens) 2

Few things give me more delight in checking these minor league box scores than seeing one of the team’s pitching prospects have a good game. In this case, Dean Kremer, acquired in last July’s Manny Machado deal, had himself a nice start, scattering two hits and two walks over five scoreless innings with eight strikeouts. Kremer tossed 71 pitches, so the five inning outing seems to have been cut short more to give other guys work.

One of those other guys specifically was Michael Baumann, who had been in the Keys rotation and got promoted. Not sure if this relief outing is what’s in his future, but he kept the Senators hitless in two innings, issuing a pair of walks and striking out two batters. Dillon Tate struck out a batter in a perfect ninth to get the save.

At the plate, Yusniel Diaz drove in three runs for the Baysox, though he only had a single in five at-bats. Fringier prospect Mason McCoy, the Bowie leadoff man, had a pair of singles and scored two runs. McCoy just keeps hitting: He’s now batting .322/.381/.424 in 41 Double-A games. We can’t expect too much from a guy with no power in Bowie, but I’ll be happy for him if he gets a chance to keep performing at Norfolk instead.

Frederick Keys 5, Wilmington (Royals) 3

The Keys trailed 2-0 heading into the eighth inning, where they exploded for five runs and then held on to win after loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth.

Four different Frederick batters had two-hit games, including NASCAR scion Zach Jarrett and freshly-promoted Robbie Thorburn. Starting pitcher Cameron Bishop held the Blue Rocks to two runs on four hits and three walks in 6.2 innings, picking up five strikeouts.

Greensboro (Pirates) 4, Delmarva Shorebirds 3

The Shorebirds have played a lot of good games this year on the way to a 50-22 record. This was not one of them, with the team committing three errors that led to three unearned runs against starting pitcher Hector Guance. Guance didn’t help his own case much by walking five batters in five innings.

A number of Delmarva’s top performers have now been bumped up to Frederick, so we’ll see if they can keep it up without those guys. Middle infielders Adam Hall and Cadyn Grenier were each 1-4 in the game; Hall retains the edge for the season with his .824 OPS against Grenier’s .743.

Delmarva actually out-hit Greensboro, 6-5. The walks and the errors ended up doing them in.

Aberdeen IronBirds 11, Hudson Valley (Rays) 2

Aberdeen scored all eleven of their runs in the fifth inning or later, including a six-run ninth inning to really blow the game open. The O’s most interesting college draftees of 2019 haven’t made their way to the IronBirds yet, but good for the guys who were there for the blowout win.

A pair of 2015 draftees, Jaylen Ferguson and Tristan Graham, were the big performers in this game. Guys drafted four years ago who are still in Aberdeen are not going to rank as the most interesting prospects in the organization.

2017 19th round pick Adam Stauffer, who at 20 is still young for this level, had a solid start in the box score for the IronBirds, mostly scattering three hits and three walks with one run allowed in 5.1 innings. Stauffer struck out eight batters.

Complete box scores from Saturday’s games, including the adventures of the two Orioles Dominican Summer League teams, can be found here.

Sunday’s Scheduled Games

• Norfolk: at Buffalo, 1:05. Starter: Tyler Herb
• Bowie: at Harrisburg, 1:00. Starter: Bruce Zimmermann
• Frederick: at Wilmington, 1:35. Starter: Blaine Knight
• Delmarva: at Greensboro, 2:00. Starter: Nick Vespi
• Aberdeen: at Hudson Valley, 4:35. Starter: TBD