Baltimore Orioles: Bowie Baysox Are One Win Away, While It’s Over For Delmarva

The season is over for one Baltimore Orioles affiliate, while one more lives on.

One of the biggest storylines of the 2019 season has been the improvement of the Baltimore Orioles farm system, from the Triple-A Norfolk Tides to the Dominican Summer League, notable improvements have been made, awards have been won, history has been witnessed, and playoff births were earned.

Two Orioles affiliates began their playoff journeys on Tuesday, with the Bowie Baysox completing a massive turnaround from the start of the season and the Delmarva Shorebirds racking up 90 wins to finish as the top minor league team in the country. Unfortunately for the 2019 Shorebirds, the season came to a close last night with an extra-innings loss in game two of their South Atlantic League playoff series.

Despite finishing the regular season 90-48, the Shorebirds finished just 5.5 games ahead of the Hickory Crawdads (Texas Rangers affiliate) in the SAL’s Northern Division (combining first and second half records). The franchises matched up in a battle of two fantastic teams this week, resulting in a two-game sweep by Hickory over Delmarva to advance to the SAL championship series later this week.

Gray Fenter took the ball for Friday night’s must-win game, striking out a career-high 13 hitters across 6.1 shutout innings (zero walks), but received no help from his offense which followed up their 10-hit performance in game one with just two hits in game two. Adley Rutschman recorded both hits (singles). Delmarva would fall by a score of 1-0 in the 10th inning.

For the prospects who rode this wave all season and the staff who put in the work behind the scenes to help make this happen, I can’t image how much this loss stings. But if the Shorebirds represent what the future of Birdland will look like, fans are in for a real treat.

While Rutschman, Grayson Rodriguez, Adam Hall, and many other impressive prospects will move up the ladder to Frederick, maybe Bowie for Rutschman, a fresh wave of players will make their way to Salisbury next season, a group who helped propel the Aberdeen Ironbirds to a franchise-high 42 wins this season in the New York-Penn League. Expect the Shorebirds to be just as competitive next season.

The Bowie Baysox need one more to advance.

Once Opening Day rosters were revealed before the start of the season, many fans pointed at the Bowie Baysox roster with eyes wide open at the amount of talent that graced the initial roster. Pitching prospects Zac Lowther and Alex Wells and outfielders Yusniel Diaz and Ryan McKenna were all Top 30 prospects with promise and expected to have big seasons in Double-A.

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However, the 2019 season got off to a rough start in Bowie. The Baysox finished the first month of the year with a 6-19 record, including a 2-6 record against their current playoff opponent, the Harrisburg Senators (Washington Nationals affiliate). The offense was anemic and Bowie needed an 8-2 end to the first half of the season just to finish eight games under .500.

Once things clicked, Bowie was nearly unstoppable. Going 46-26 in the second half of the season, Bowie finished tied with the best record in the Eastern League and turned their early struggles into a playoff birth. The Baysox are now one game away from earning a trip to take on the Trenton Thunder (New York Yankees affiliate) in the Eastern League championship series.

I mentioned before the series started that this Bowie pitching staff could carry them to a championship title, but it’s been the offense that has shown up in key moments and impressed the most. Last night’s 7-5 win over Harrisburg gave Bowie the 2-1 advantage in the best of five series.

After a down year offensively, Preston Palmeiro has four hits in three games, including a double and a triple. Sometimes, it’s the veterans who step up and take control of a game, as Anderson Feliz did on Friday night with his two home runs.

Bowie looks to take the series on Saturday at 3 pm EST with LHP Alex Wells on the bump. Wells will look to continue his dominant season (8-6, 2.95 ERA, 1.07 WHIP) and send the Baysox back to the Eastern League championship series.

You can watch today’s contest on MiLB TV while you put a college football game on another screen. Sounds like a perfect Saturday to me!