Baysox talk about No. 1 farm rating as O's open at the Trop

BOWIE – The last two full minor league seasons have ended with the Double-A Bowie Baysox playing for a league championship. The Baysox came up short both times, but they went 76-64 in 2019 and 73-47 last year, with a fast start and sizzling finish, to wrap up a postseason berth.

Results like that and the highly ranked players that helped produce all of those wins have led the Orioles farm system to the No. 1 ranking in the majors from both ESPN and MLBPipeline.com. They are No. 4 via Baseball America.

On the eve of tonight’s Eastern League season opener for his club at Prince George’s Stadium versus Richmond, first-year Baysox skipper Kyle Moore said having a highly ranked farm won’t get his team or the O's organization anywhere unless they keep pushing and putting in the work to stay No. 1.

“I addressed that in the locker room in our opening team meeting,” Moore said during Baysox media day Thursday. “Because I’m really proud of that being a coach in this organization for a long time. I take extreme pride in us having the No. 1 farm system. But I don’t want the players to hear that or buy that at all. Because the truth is, no one in the AL East cares, and no one in the Eastern League cares either.

“You have to go out there and earn it. We can have the most talented team in baseball, but I want our guys to be the hungriest team in Minor league Baseball. If we go out there and do that, the talent will show. But if we come out here and buy into the hype that we’re the No. 1 farm system and we have all these best players and all this, that and the other, there are other clubs that have really good farm systems, too. And a lot of them are in our division. I try to keep the hype away from our guys as much as I can and make them understand you have to earn everything in this game.”

Did Moore’s message resonate with his players?

“I think it did,” he said. “I don’t know how much they really pay attention to that, hopefully not at all. But if they do just in case, everybody has a device with a ton of social media, so they have to hear it at some point, right? And it is really a feather in the cap for this organization, but I want my players to show up hungry every single day. … We play in the best division in the world and none of these players in this clubhouse have a single day of (big league) service time. So I think they should be eager and willing to come in and develop every day single day because they are looking for their first shot.”

Westburg ready to follow up good spring: As the 2022 minor league season begins for many teams tonight, one of the O’s top infield prospects begins this year where he left off last season. Jordan Westburg is back at Bowie, where he played 30 games late last summer and then in the Double-A playoffs.

Westburg went 4-for-8 with a double in four spring games with the Orioles and even started at third base in Tampa versus the New York Yankees. It was a game where he began a nifty 5-4-3 double play and roped a long single off the base of the right-center wall that was hit with a 103 mph exit velocity.

Ranked as high as the club’s No. 6 prospect by Baseball America, The Athletic and MLBPipeline.com, Westburg is a confident player. Confident enough to hope that while he begins this year in the Eastern League, he later could rise to play in the American League.

“I would like to make my (big league) debut this year,” Westburg said Thursday. “That is the ultimate goal for everybody that is on this club right now. Just looking at what I did last year, I was happy with the way I progressed and just how I learned at each level. Failed and then made the adjustments to, you know, continue to improve. I’d like to do that again this year and feel like if I do that at a high level, I’ll give myself a chance.”

Westburg said it was exciting to get to start for the Orioles as he did March 23 in Tampa versus the Yankees.

“The ultimate goal is to get to Baltimore and make an impact,” he said. “And they’re one of those teams we’re going to play a lot. They are always going to be a good and that will always be a huge stage. It was really cool and a lot of fun. But what it made better is I was just playing baseball. Felt like I belonged and was really proud of the way I played and the way I handled it.”

He added that he agrees with his manager that the players should not get caught up in the No. 1 farm rating.

“You know numbers and rankings only mean so much,” said Westburg. “What you do on the field means everything. If we go out and play poorly, then whoever came up with those rankings will look not too smart. So it’s on us to go out and put a good product on the field and that comes with how we approach our work each day.”

Moore said the Baysox may be using a six-man rotation to begin the season. He said lefty Drew Rom would start tonight’s season opener and be followed by right-hander Brandon Young and then lefty Antonio Velez, one of the players the O’s added in Sunday’s trade with Miami.

The Bowie starters may only go four innings or so this time through the rotation, but Moore said Velez was stretched out to six innings in his last spring start for the Marlins.

And it begins for the Orioles, too: With the lockout, the quiet of the winter and now a quicker than normal spring training in the rear-view mirror, the Orioles open their 69th season in Baltimore this afternoon when they face Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field.

The Orioles (52-110) finished 48 games behind the first-place Rays (100-62) in 2021 and today the clubs begin a three-game series leading to Monday’s opening day game in Baltimore.

Left-handers are on the mound, with the Orioles’ John Means (6-9, 3.62 ERA in 2021) versus Baltimore-born Shane McClanahan (10-6, 3.43 ERA in 2021).

McClanahan went 4-0 with an ERA of 2.74 in four starts last season against the Orioles. Baltimore batters hit .250 with an OPS of .665 against him. Means went 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA in five starts last season against the Rays.

Means is the first O’s starter since Chris Tillman in 2014 through 2016 to start at least two straight opening day games. Means pitched a gem last year in the opener at Boston, allowing one hit in seven scoreless as the Orioles won 3-0 at Fenway Park – their first opening day shutout since 2005.

The Orioles are 44-24 all-time on opening day and have gone16-5 in opening day games since 2001