Orioles hitting woes extend to farm

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The Orioles need a big-time bat to bolster its lineup. But don’t expect that help to come from within the organization anytime soon.

Only one of the Orioles seven minor league affiliates — Rookie League Bluefield — is batting better than .275 as a team. Of the other six, four of those teams are in the bottom third in team batting average in their respective leagues.

Compounding the Orioles’ minor league offensive woes is those four teams — low Single-A Delmarva, high Single-A Frederick, Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk — represent the Baltimore’s top four affiliates.

However, Orioles director of minor league operations David Stockstill said those numbers are slightly misleading because many of the team’s top prospects are producing offensively.

“We may not be hitting well overall throughout the system, but the key prospects that we are depending on for the future are hitting pretty well for us,” Stockstill said. “We have a lot of young players that we feel have the tools to reach the Major Leagues.”

Through Tuesday, Delmarva’s .251 batting average is 14th in the 16-team South Atlantic League, with Frederick (.243) in last in the eight-team Eastern League. Bowie, which is hitting .253, is ninth of 12 teams in the Carolina League and Norfolk (.253) is 11th out of 14 teams in the International League. Norfolk is also 13th in runs scored (344), RBIs (327) and on-base percentage (.318).

The Orioles remaining affiliates — the Rookie League Gulf Coast League Orioles and short-season Single-A Aberdeen — aren’t faring much better, batting .265 and .247, respectively.

Stockstill said he is high on the performance of players like Frederick second baseman Jonathan Tucker (.272, 13 stolen bases), Bowie second baseman Paco Figueroa (.297, 46 runs, 12 SB) and Bowie outfielder Val Majewski (.285, 45 runs, 40 RBIs), who played briefly with the Orioles in 2004.

“As we enter the second half,” Stockstill said, “we need to see those younger players continue to improve and our older free agents show that they deserve to have a shot at the major leagues.”

NOTES

Here are the records for the Orioles minor league affiliates through Tuesday:

» Gulf Coast League Orioles (R) - 11-7

» Bluefield Orioles (R) - 10-10

» Aberdeen IronBirds (A) - 8-12

» Delmarva Shorebirds (A) -8-10*

» Frederick Keys (A) - 8-11*

» Bowie Baysox (AA) - 44-46

» Norfolk Tides (AAA) - 42-48

* - Second half records

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