Tides are rolling to start season
O’s Triple-A affiliate posting incredible stats on offense
During the Orioles’ rebuild, fans often found solace in the success of the organization’s minor league teams.
The big league club slogged through 100-loss seasons, but up-and-coming prospects stood out on the farm to give the fan base hope for its beleaguered team. Now, with the Orioles coming off a 101-win season and still owning baseball’s top-ranked farm system, Orioles fans can have their cake and eat it, too.
There is no better illustration of this than the scorching-hot start by Triple-A Norfolk. The Tides boast a roster with six of the Orioles’ top nine prospects, according to Baseball America, and the defending Triple-A national champions are proving once again that they’re the best minor league team in baseball by putting up gaudy numbers night after night.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at the Tides’ incredible start to the season through Friday.
12.1
The Tides have scored a whopping 85 runs in seven games — or 12.1 per game — to lead the club to a 6-1 record. They’ve scored 36 more runs than any other International League team — a difference that amounts to a greater run total than 16 of the 19 other IL teams have scored.
26
Norfolk’s offense is hitting so many homers the club’s social media account can’t keep up. The Tides’ 26 homers through seven games are as many as the next three IL teams combined. No IL club has reached double digits yet.
1.299
The success of this team is causing fans to ponder whether the Tides could hold their own against the worst MLB teams. The top five hitters in their lineup are why, and they’re also the reason for the majority of the incredible statistics.
Prospects Jackson Holliday, Connor Norby, Heston Kjerstad, Coby Mayo and
Kyle Stowers have combined to go 65-for164 (.393) with a mind-boggling 1.299 OPS. For reference, that OPS is higher than the one Babe Ruth posted in his 60-homer 1927 season. All five prospects either have big league experience or appear to be ready for the show, and they didn’t waste any time proving it in Triple-A.
7
All five of those prospects have posted an OPS over 1.000, and so have two others. Here’s the team’s OPS leaderboard: Kjerstad
(1.744), Peyton Burdick (1.395), Stowers (1.304), Maverick Handley (1.221), Holliday (1.152), Norby (1.148) and Mayo (1.141). Kjerstad leads the IL in OPS, while Burdick and Stowers also rank in the league’s top 10.
12 and 43
The Norfolk Five — Holliday, Norby, Kjerstad, Mayo and Stowers — has been outstanding, but two of its members have been putting up truly video game numbers.
Kjerstad and Stowers, the two oldest members and most big league-ready of the group, have combined to hit 12 home runs with 43 RBIs.
No, that RBI total is not a typo. Kjerstad, the club’s No. 5 prospect who debuted last
season, has 25 RBIs, including 10 in one game, and six long balls for a 1.188 slugging percentage. Stowers, the Orioles’ No. 16 prospect who debuted in 2022 and struggled in limited time in Baltimore last year, has 18 RBIs and six long balls, including three in one game.
54.1%
The worst job in baseball this year has been being a Triple-A pitcher against the Tides. Norfolk has scored in 33 of its 61 offensive innings — a rate of 54.1% — with several of them crooked numbers. The Tides have scored five or more runs in five frames, including a 10-run first inning Friday.