O's sending eight players to Arizona Fall League

The Orioles will send eight players to the Arizona Fall League and they will play with the Surprise Saguaros beginning Oct. 8. The O's players going include Cuban outfielders Henry Urrutia and Dariel Alvarez along with pitchers Eduardo Rodriguez, Jason Gurka, Branden Kline and Tim Berry. Catcher Michael Ohlman and infielder Jonathan Schoop round out the O's players headed for Arizona. Ohlman is listed as a taxi squad player that will play two games per week. The O's are sending two staff members to that team as Double-A Bowie manager Gary Kendall will manage the Saguaros and Aberdeen's Alan Mills were serve as pitching coach. The team plays six days per week and the O's players share a roster with players from Boston, Texas, Milwaukee and Cleveland. Over the years, 60 percent of those that have played in the AFL went on to play in the majors. The 24-year-old Alvarez is batting .404 with three homers, nine RBIs and an 1.129 OPS in 14 O's minor league games. He just moved from Single-A Frederick, where he hit .436 in 10 games, to Double-A Bowie, where he went 0-for-4 in his Baysox debut last night. Urrutia hit a grand slam for Triple-A Norfolk last night against Gwinnett and former Oriole Freddy Garcia. In 74 minor league games, Urrutia is batting .361 with nine homers and 49 RBIs. He hit .269 in 21 games with the Orioles. A left-hander, Berry is 9-7 with a 3.91 ERA in 25 Frederick starts over 140 1/3 innings. Berry was a 50th-round draft pick in 2009. Gurka, also a lefty, has gone 2-2 with a 2.95 ERA in relief over 39 2/3 innings for Bowie. He was an O's 15th-round pick in 2008. Kline, the Orioles' second-round pick last year out of the University of Virginia, has been out since late May after having surgery to repair a right ankle/fibula fracture. Before the injury, he went 1-2 with a 5.86 ERA in seven starts at Single-A Delmarva. The 20-year-old Rodriguez is 9-7 with a 3.56 ERA over 24 starts between Frederick and Bowie. In 10 Bowie starts, the lefty is 3-3 with a 4.70 ERA. He pitched eight scoreless innings for the Baysox last night and has allowed just one run in 19 innings over his past three starts. Ohlman is batting .308 with 26 doubles, 13 homers, 50 RBIs and a .932 OPS over 93 games with Frederick. He was selected by the Orioles in the 11th round of the 2009 draft. Schoop, who missed about two months this year with a stress fracture in his lower back, is batting .253 with eight homers and 31 RBIs in 62 games with Norfolk.