ANNAPOLIS, Md. – So now the score is 2-2. There are two Orioles full-season affiliates that use a very specific home name, as in the Triple-A Norfolk Tides and the High-A Aberdeen IronBirds. Now two have a more regional look: the Low-A Delmarva Shorebirds and, as of yesterday, the Double-A Chesapeake Baysox, formerly the Bowie Baysox.

“I think when we looked at where our fans are coming from, we wanted to be inclusive of the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Brian Shallcross, in his 20^th year as Baysox general manager. “We saw people coming from the Eastern Shore, west of the Potomac. We were surprised when we dug into the stats of just how far and ranging our fanbase was. We wanted to be inclusive of all those fans without forgetting our roots.”

Shallcross noted that the club went through a two-year process to change the name and meet all Major League Baseball approvals. The Orioles were involved throughout. They don’t own this team, but it’s their farm system.

So, what changes now?

“Well, I think what changes, basically, is we want to make sure that everybody knows they are welcome in our ballpark," Shallcross said. "Anywhere within the Chesapeake - and, heck, you saw we’ve sold tickets to fans from 42 states and Maryland – but anywhere, really, in the watershed we want to be welcoming and a destination.”

For 22-year-old outfielder Dylan Beavers of the Double-A Bowie Baysox, the work to get better and take his game to higher levels is ongoing daily at Prince George’s Stadium and other ballparks around the Eastern League.

Beavers is ranked as the Orioles’ No. 6 prospect by MLBPipeline.com and No. 10 via Baseball America.

He added weight and strength over the winter and that helped him drive the ball better and hit more homers, but he also seen his batting average and OPS drop.

But on the O’s farm, the focus is always on process over results and coaches and players alike take a long-term view. A couple days or even a few weeks of struggles are understood if both sides feel that things are taking place for long-term success.

“I think there have been some positives to take away and also definitely some things to improve on, work on,” Beavers told me recently at Bowie in sizing up his 2024 season. “My power is starting to show up – feel like I am driving the ball better this year. And just kind of matching that consistency that I had last year while continuing to drive the ball.”

BOWIE, Md. – You won’t find his name on those top 30 prospect lists. He doesn’t throw a blazing fastball. He played college ball at the Div. 1 level and was not a high draft pick. 

But what Bowie bullpen right-hander Dylan Heid does have is very impressive stats and a very unique pitch he throws on rare occasions, a pitch not seen much anymore in pro baseball.

The O’s selected Heid (pronounced Hyde-like the O’s skipper) in Round 11 out of Pitt-Johnston of the 2021 draft. There he was a starter with big stats then too. As a senior in 2021, he went 7-2 with a 1.37 ERA. Over 59 1/3 he walked 15 and fanned 105 and had a seven-inning no-hitter on his resume.

This season with Double-A Bowie, Heid, 26, is 4-2 with a 1.11 ERA in 25 games. He pitched three hitless, scoreless innings earlier this week versus Richmond and added 1 1/3 scoreless in Bowie's extra-innings loss last night. For the year over 40 2/3 innings, he has allowed just 22 hits with 14 walks to 40 strikeouts, along with a 0.89 WHIP and .157 average against. Lefty batters are hitting .154 off him and right-handers are at .169.

Over his past 14 games, Heid has allowed two earned runs in 25 2/3 innings for an ERA of 0.70 in this span.

The Orioles announced two more minor league signings today, agreeing to terms with infielder Niko Goodrum and right-hander Burch Smith.

Goodrum, 32, appeared in nine games with the Rays and four with the Angels this season and went 3-for-29 with 10 strikeouts. The Pirates selected him on waivers June 10 and he was granted his release a week later.

In parts of seven major league seasons, Goodrum has batted .224/.297/.383 with 76 doubles, 11 triples, 42 home runs and 152 RBIs in 415 games and also played every infield and outfield position. He broke into the majors with the Twins in 2017, played for the Tigers from 2018-21 and appeared in 15 games with the Astros in 2022.

Goodrum spent 2023 between Triple-A Worcester in the Red Sox’s system and with Lotte in the Korea Baseball Organization.

Smith, 34, made 25 relief appearances with the Marlins this year and posted a 4.25 ERA and 1.618 WHIP in 29 2/3 innings. He pitched in Japan in 2022 and Korea in 2023.

ST. LOUIS – A storm producing heavy rain that rolled through Busch Stadium tonight just after 8 p.m local time has forced the suspension of tonight’s Orioles-Cardinals game.

The game will resume Wednesday at 11:15 a.m. local time (12:15 p.m ET) with the teams tied 1-1 and St. Louis coming to bat in the last of the sixth. When that game ends, and 30 minutes later, they will play Wednesday's regularly scheduled nine-inning game. 

Tonight, right-hander Kyle Bradish made his fourth start since coming off the injured list. Just like Dean Kremer last night, he had to pitch early on with no run support.

But he got the job done allowing one run over the first four innings on 61 pitches and twice stranding runners at second and third. He did that in the third and fourth innings by getting big outs.

The Orioles didn’t score until the sixth inning last night and not until the fifth tonight.

For long-time fans of the Orioles minor leagues, it might come as a surprise. There were many seasons when the Double-A Bowie Baysox, playing in the shadow of Washington, D.C., struggled to draw fans.

But in the last few years that has turned around. There have been four nights this year when Bowie drew 7,000 or more and for eight Friday and Saturday dates this season, the Baysox have averaged 7,125 fans. 

From 2022 to 2023, Bowie ranked No. 3 out of the 120 full-season minor league teams with an average attendance increase of 34.4 percent. Wichita was No. 1 with a higher increase on average and Binghamton No. 2.

These are better days throughout the minors with overall attendance for all teams up 4.4 percent from 2022 to 2023. Double-A teams were up 5.3 percent and the Eastern League itself, of which Bowie is a member, was up 6.8.

Bowie is nowhere close to the top drawing team in baseball or even in its own league. But the gains are still impressive and ongoing into this season.

For Orioles outfielder Austin Hays, it was a familiar ballpark, just one he had not seen in person for quite awhile. From May 7-12, and a few days before that in practice, Hays spent time with the Double-A Bowie Baysox on his injury rehab assignment.

From 2017 through 2019, Hays, on his way up in the Baltimore farm system, spent time with Bowie. Once the Orioles' No. 1 ranked prospect, he batted .283 with 31 homers, 34 doubles and 108 RBIs in 144 total games with the Baysox. His best season in Bowie was in 2017 as just a 21-year-old when he hit .330 with 16 homers, 17 doubles and 54 RBIs in 64 games. He was a finalist that year for Baseball America’s National Player of the Year.

Now years later, he wore the Baysox uniform as a major league vet. A player for the kids now coming up through Bowie can try and learn from.

“I can feel that, as a bit older now, there are a lot more questions asked then when I was there in the past. Just kind of, ‘What’s your approach on this? What does your routine look like?’ Different questions like that,” Hays said the Bowie players asked him.

And he was very happy to help those prospects if he could.

WASHINGTON – Kyle Bradish makes his second start tonight since his reinstatement from the injured list, and the Orioles are attempting to avoid being swept in a regular season series for the first time since May 2022.

The streak of 102 series is on the line.

Bradish allowed one run in 4 2/3 innings Thursday against the Yankees in his 2024 debut. He’s started twice against the Nationals and racked up 14 scoreless innings.

Keibert Ruiz is 3-for-5 against Bradish.

Cedric Mullins moves down to ninth in the lineup tonight against the latest opposing left-handed starter. Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter while James McCann catches.

The Austin Hays workouts are turning into an injury rehab assignment.

The Orioles announced that Hays will begin playing for Double-A Bowie on Tuesday night against the Akron RubberDucks at Prince George’s Stadium. First pitch is 6:35 p.m.

Hays is on the injured list since April 22 with a left calf strain. He was 5-for-45 with no extra-base hits and a .311 OPS in 19 games.

The recent at-bats were producing more solid contact and he collected a hit in each of his last two games. He tweaked the knee running from first to third base against the Royals on April 20 in Kansas City and decided he couldn’t cover the necessary ground in left field, which led to Colton Cowser as a defensive replacement and a trip to the IL.

Hays ramped up baseball activities Thursday at Camden Yards, sprinting between bases and taking batting practice on the field.

Earlier this week when I was in Bowie, Md., to cover Kyle Bradish's first injury rehab start, I spent some time with Double-A Bowie manager Roberto Mercado to discuss his team's solid start to the new season.

It has been some weekend in Bowie with the Baysox winning Friday 5-4 over Altoona on a walk-off on John Rhodes' single in the 10th. Last night, Jud Fabian's grand slam in the last of the ninth was a walk-off winner 6-2. It was Fabian's second homer of the season and he's now batting .310 with a .944 OPS.

Bowie drew 7,159 fans on Friday and 7,988 on Saturday to Prince George's Stadium. 

Between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the Baysox's increase in average home attendance was among the best in all of the minors and they are off to a good start at the turnstile this year.

Bowie is now 8-6 and through Friday's games had a plus-12 run differential ranked third-best in the 12-team league thus far. Bowie led the league with 77 runs scored and also with an .817 OPS. Bowie's team ERA of 4.34 was eighth-best in the Eastern League.

BOWIE, Md. – Catcher Samuel Basallo, ranked as the No. 10 prospect in the sport by Baseball America and No. 17 via MLB Pipeline, will begin the season in the designated hitter role for Double-A Bowie, as expected. But he should be playing in the field within the first 10 or so games of the year.

Basallo was only a DH with the Orioles in big league camp after suffering a stress fracture in his right elbow over the winter. He is not ready to catch in games yet. 

But during Bowie’s media day today at Prince George’s Stadium, he said his throwing program and progression to get back in games playing defense has gone just fine. 

“I’m progressing very well. There have not been any setbacks. My arm is getting stronger and I feel good,” he said with interpreting help from Bowie manager Roberto Mercado.

He said the program to build arm strength has gone well.

The Orioles today announced their minor league coaching and player development staff assignments for the 2024 season. Three full-season managers return, but two move to different affiliates.

Buck Britton will return for his third season as manager of the Triple-A Norfolk Tides. In 2023, he led the Tides to a record of 90-59 as they won the International League championship and the Triple-A National Championship Game. Last year, he was the winner of the Orioles’ Cal Ripken Sr. Player Development Award.

Roberto Mercado moves up to Double-A Bowie to serve as manager after leading High-A Aberdeen the last two seasons. In 2022, he took Aberdeen to the playoffs and won the Ripken Sr. Award.

Felipe Rojas Alou Jr. will move up to manage Aberdeen. He has been with the O’s organization for 16 years and managed Single-A Delmarva the last two seasons.

Collin Woody will be a first-time manager, taking over at Delmarva. He served as a fundamentals coach the last two seasons in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League.

BOWIE, Md. – Before Saturday night at Prince George's Stadium, the last time right-hander Tyler Wells was seen on a mound he lasted just 2 2/3 innings. It was a week ago last night at Baltimore’s Camden Yards where he allowed three runs and three hits on 63 pitches against the New York Yankees.

It was his third straight sub-par game – a stretch where he allowed 11 runs and nine walks over nine innings – and he was optioned to Double-A Bowie after that game.

He reported to the Baysox team here on Tuesday for a reset and to get his arm and body some rest. Scheduled to make a short start last night for Bowie, he took the mound in his No. 34 home white Baysox jersey to face the team with the second-best record in the Eastern League, Boston affiliate Portland.

Pitching at the Double-A level for the first time since the 2018 season and making just his second outing for an O’s affiliate (one at High-A Aberdeen last year), Wells allowed two hits and one run on a solo homer over 3 1/3 innings Saturday night as Bowie beat Portland 9-4.

Wells walked one and fanned two, throwing 53 pitches, 35 for strikes. Many fastballs registered in the 93 mph range on the PG Stadium gun, so pretty normal for Wells, who has gone 7-6 with a 3.80 ERA for the Orioles.

Sometimes you have to win the game twice. Sometimes you have to do it twice within the same series.

Thursday the Orioles lost a two-run lead in the seventh but won the game. Yesterday they lost a five-run lead in the sixth and two-run lead in the eighth and yet won the game.

It is what good and tough teams can do. It is why the Orioles, who were 6.5 games back of the Rays on July 1, lead the AL East by one game today.

James McCann and Jorge Mateo drove in two runs each versus Shane McClanahan early on and late in the game McCann had an amazing sac bunt and Ryan O'Hearn had a clutch hit in the ninth. Once again there were several big plays on defense with Gunnar Henderson again in the middle of it. Cionel Pérez got a huge out and Félix Bautista was outstanding again. 

It's been said this O's team features a roster without a lot of playoff experience. But they are certainly gaining big game experience in front of our eyes. 

BOWIE, Md. - Manny Machado played at Double-A Bowie at age 19 in 2012 and pitcher Dylan Bundy was 19 when he pitched for Bowie that same year. Now Jackson Holliday becomes the next O’s prospect to ascend to Bowie before his 20^th birthday.

It’s been quite a run of now nearly 365 days for the kid. Drafted No. 1 overall by the Orioles on July 17, 2022, he is still a few days removed from that one-year anniversary. He started this season playing at Low Single-A Delmarva and moved to High-A Aberdeen playing his first game there on April 25. On July 8, he played in the All-Star Futures Game in Seattle representing the Orioles. And now, six days later he played his first game in the Double-A Eastern League.

Last night in his Baysox debut, Holliday went 2-for-5 with singles in the second and ninth innings.

Bowie lost 8-6, but left fielder John Rhodes hit three solo homers and has eight on the year after producing his first career multi-homer game. Drafted in round three from Kentucky in 2021, Rhodes has a .251 average and .796 OPS in 62 Baysox games. His OPS was .985 in June. This was the seventh three-homer game in Bowie team history.

Holliday began the year ranked No. 12 via MLBPipeline.com and is now No. 1 in that top 100 ranking as baseball’s top prospect. He began the year at No. 15 via Baseball America and is now No. 2 on that list. Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz will soon graduate from those rankings, where he is No. 1 and Holliday will move to No. 1 there too.

BOWIE, Md. – On Monday, 19-year-old Jackson Holliday will celebrate the one-year anniversary of being selected by the Orioles with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft. He hoped to make it as far as Double-A Bowie during this his first full season in pro baseball.

He’s done it. The news was out on Sunday and tonight Holliday, after beginning this year playing 14 games with Low Single-A Delmarva and then moving on to High-A Aberdeen for 57, will debut at Bowie. He’s batting second and playing shortstop against Akron tonight, hitting after leadoff batter Billy Cook and before Jud Fabian.

The great 2023 season for Holliday, who has become the No. 1 ranked prospect via MLBPipeline.com and No. 2 on the Baseball America list this year and who also recently played in the All-Star Futures Games, continues tonight as he arrives at the Double-A level maybe even faster than he figured on.

But a goal is achieved for him as he arrives at Double-A.

“Absolutely,” he said this afternoon in the Baysox dugout. “I came into spring training as this was my goal for the end of the year. I’ve reached it so now there are new goals. So, who knows what can happen but I’m excited to be here. Time to keep playing and enjoying it.”

Doing the math is pretty easy. Interpreting what it all means can be more challenging. But we do know the sport of baseball has gravitated toward placing increased value on pitchers with big strikeout totals. And while we used to be most enamored with raw strikeout totals, now stats like strikeout percentage might tell us a bit more.

Strikeout percentage is easy to get to. Simply divide the number of batters a pitcher strikes out by the total batters he faced. A pitcher that fanned 30 of 90 batters faced has a strikeout percentage of 33.3.

This year on the O’s farm, using a standard of 50 innings pitched for the year, the Orioles had seven minor league pitchers produce a strikeout percentage of 30 or above. Four of them are now on the 40-man roster and two were just added this week.

The list of seven:

36.6 – DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez

The Orioles’ high Single-A Aberdeen affiliate needs to win tonight to extend its season. Tuesday night the IronBirds lost 8-1 at Brooklyn in Game 1 of a best-of-three South Atlantic League semifinal series. Should Aberdeen win tonight at 7:05 p.m. at Ripken Stadium, the teams will play a third and deciding game tomorrow night in Aberdeen.

Aberdeen reached the SAL playoffs by going 43-23 and winning the first-half division title. Brooklyn won the second-half, when Aberdeen went 35-31 for an overall record of 78-54 under first-year pro manager Roberto Mercado.

Outfielder Heston Kjerstad was the only IronBird with a multi-hit game Tuesday, going 2-for-4 with a pair of singles. Kjerstad ended the regular season with a four-game hitting streak, going 7-for-16 with a double and homer. He batted .290 in September.

But overall in 43 games with Aberdeen, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2020 draft batted .233/.312/./362/.674 with eight doubles, two triples, three homers and 20 RBIs. This was after he tore it up for low Single-A Delmarva, posting an OPS of 1.201 in 22 games.

Mercado said in a recent interview that Kjerstad was indeed swinging it better later in the year.

The playoffs begin in several leagues around Minor League Baseball tonight. For the Orioles high Single-A affiliate, the Aberdeen IronBirds, they travel to Brooklyn for Game 1 of a best-of-three league semi-final series in the South Atlantic League.

Aberdeen (78-54) advanced by virtue of winning its division in the first half, going 43-23. Brooklyn (70-62) won the second-half going 40-26. This series winner will play the Rome-Bowling Green winner for the league championship. Aberdeen will host Game 2 with Brooklyn Thursday at 7:05 p.m. at Ripken Stadium and Game 3, if necessary, will be Friday in Aberdeen.

It may not mean much now, but Aberdeen was 13-5 in the regular season against Brooklyn, a New York Mets affiliate.

“I feel confident,” Aberdeen manager Roberto Mercado, in his first season as a pro skipper, said yesterday. “We had a chance to see a bunch of their guys they recently added, and they have some good arms, but we’ll be ready for them. It should be a great series.”

Right-hander Jean Pinto (4-6, 3.83 ERA) gets the opening game start for the IronBirds against right-hander Luis Moreno (8-7, 2.84) for the Cyclones. Pinto’s ERA was 1.13 his last six Aberdeen games.

It was a nice honor for an Orioles prospect that might be flying a bit under the radar this year. This despite being tied for the organization lead in home runs with 23.

But Connor Norby, Double-A Bowie second baseman, got some recognition yesterday when he was named the Eastern League Player of the Month for August.

Over 26 games during the month, Norby batted .339/.405/.661 with nine homers and 26 RBIs to go with an OPS of 1.066. He led the league in hits, homers, RBIs and total bases in August and ranked second in slugging and OPS.

The 22-year-old Norby is rated as the Orioles’ No. 12 prospect by both Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com.

“Really has the look of a pure hitter,” Bowie manager Kyle Moore said of Norby before Tuesday’s game at Prince George’s Stadium. “Can really drive the ball to right-center. He can hit a homer to right-center off a really good arm. And so, that puts him in position to hit the best stuff. If you have a mid-to-upper 90s fastball, he can take you deep to right-center. If you have a little wrinkle with off-speed, he can take you deep to left-center.”