Mike Griffin on Mychal Givens and Parker Bridwell, plus final AFL stats

Last year, eight players from the Orioles organization played for the Surprise Saguaros, who won the Arizona Fall League championship. Pitchers Eduardo Rodriguez, Tim Berry, Branden Kline and Jason Gurka, and position players Henry Urrutia, Dariel Alvarez, Jonathan Schoop and Michael Ohlman were on that team. Today, Peoria plays Salt River for the AFL championship, but the season is over for the seven O's that played on the Glendale Desert Dogs, who finished 14-15-2. Right-hander Zach Davies went 3-0 with a 1.75 ERA in seven AFL starts. He was recently ranked the Orioles' No. 6 prospect by Baseball America. I wrote here several days ago about his pitching in the AFL. Davies, who gave up just one run over his last 21 innings in Arizona, posted the best ERA of any AFL pitcher with 20 innings or more. Mike Griffin, the pitching coach the last six seasons for the Orioles' Triple-A Norfolk affiliate, was co-pitching coach for Glendale and I him asked about two other O's prospects that pitched in the AFL. One is right-hander Mychal Givens, who pitched at Single-A Frederick and Double-A Bowie this season, going 1-2 with a 3.53 ERA. Givens just completed his second season pitching after three years playing shortstop and he uses a unique low three-quarters arm slot that is almost sidearm and figures to be tough on right-handed batters. He can touch the mid 90s with his fastball, which is unusual for a pitcher coming from that arm angle. He went 0-2 with a 3.09 ERA in 10 games in the AFL and gave up just one run over his last six innings. "It's just about going out and letting him pitch. He's just finishing his second full year of pitching. He's facing stiffer competition out here," Griffin said recently. "Not a whole lot of mechanical adjustments, just trying to get him to get that arm slot more consistent and he's making progress here. A more consistent slot has led to more consistent outings. "Earlier, he was standing up in his delivery more than I thought he should have been. Right now, we're trying to get him to start with a little bit of a bend in his upper body at the waist, so that arm slot is right where it needs to be as soon as he goes toward the plate. It's just a very so slight (adjustment). "We want him to get into an athletic position on the rubber. It is not as drastic as Darren O'Day. It allows him to get into the arm slot with better consistency." Givens is working to improve his command and control. More consistent mechanics will likely be the key for that. "It is for him right now," Griffin said. "He is still learning a lot about himself in making the transition to being a pitcher and he is still learning his delivery. He's got what we call a young arm. Each outing, he is really picking it up even more. "He's also done some work on his slider to try and get better consistency with that and we've done some work on his changeup. He's got a great arm." Givens pitches with heavy sink and he could turn into a late-inning reliever that is a groundball machine. He recorded a nearly 3-to-1 ground-to-air out ratio after he moved to Double-A midsummer. "It is a a lot about the sink and we've talked about that," Griffin said. "He is a grounball pitcher and has to live and die with the groundball. He has heavy, heavy sink to his fastball and sometimes you give up a chopper or infield hit. Some hits he has given up have been a chopper through the infield here." Griffin also worked with 23-year-old right-hander Parker Bridwell with Glendale. Bridwell went 7-10 with a 4.45 ERA this season for Frederick. In the AFL, he went 0-1 with a 7.94 ERA, but that includes one outing where he gave up six runs in just one-third of an inning. In the other seven games, he pitched to an ERA of 3.27, giving up just six hits over 11 innings. Bridwell had an ERA of 1.13 after his first four AFL outings. Bridwell's velocity was sitting in the 92-93 range with Glendale. "It is just one bad outing that has skewed his numbers," Griffin said. "He has done one helluva job out here, as have all our guys. He made the All-Star team and was very deserving. He showed well in that game, he struck out the side. "We are continuing to work with him on fastball command, getting better consistency. What has been impressive with him right now is when he misfires with the fastball, he is able to get back in synch with the next pitch. "His walks are a little high, but he has made tremendous strides in his delivery. No drastic changes, just calm it down a little bit. He's done an excellent job." Bridwell's changeup made big strides this year. "It's been a swing-and-miss pitch out here and he gets a lot of strikeouts on it," Griffin said. "It's got good deception. There have been some hitters out here waiting on it and they still can't hit it. "We have been really honing on hard on his fastball command. We hope when he does leave here that he can repeat his delivery on a more consistent basis." Lefty Ashur Tolliver, who went 3-2 with a 2.89 ERA in relief this season between Frederick and Bowie, also pitched in the AFL. But he missed over three weeks with a hamstring injury. In four games, over 3 1/3 innings, Tolliver gave up one run and three hits. As for the three O's hitters in the AFL, third baseman Jason Esposito batted .253 with one homer and 12 RBIs in 23 games. He hit .348 against left-handers and .417 with runners in scoring position. Garabez Rosa batted .308 with three homers, 11 RBIs and a .799 OPS in 21 games, playing mostly at third base and in left field. He hit .358 versus right-handed pitchers. Catcher Michael Ohlman hit .244 with one homer, two RBIs and a .670 OPS in 12 games.