Zach Britton on Caleb Joseph's path to the majors and a look back at the Angels series

The 2010 season was just the third pro season for catcher Caleb Joseph. Coming off a solid 2009 year at Single-A Frederick, he was named the Orioles' No. 10 prospect by Baseball America before the year. He would begin 2010 playing at Double-A Bowie for the first time. He must have been excited to begin that year in the Eastern League. Little did he know, but he would play most of the next four seasons for the Baysox. For a while, it looked like he'd almost never get a shot at Triple-A, much less the majors. But now Joseph has 42 big league games under his belt, including 38 starts. The Orioles are 23-15 in those games. While Joseph is batting just .183, he has thrown out 15 of 29 attempted basestealers for 51.7 percent. Current O's teammate, pitcher Zach Britton, was a teammate of Joseph's at multiple stops in the minors. He always thought Joseph was good enough to play in the big leagues. "Playing with him in the minors, you knew how good a catcher he was," Britton said. "Played with him at four levels and he is a guy I've always enjoyed throwing to. He's a really good game-caller, really engaged in the game. "And he can hit. It was just a matter of getting an opportunity. Sometimes people get overlooked for whatever reason. He had as much talent as some guys we had that were always ranked higher than him prospect-wise. "It is not surprising to the guys that have played with him that he's doing so well behind the plate and starting to come around offensively. I think he surprised some other guys in here that had not played with him before." The Orioles' seventh-round pick in 2007 out of Lipscomb University, the 28-year-old Joseph began this season at Triple-A. He is Bowie's franchise leader in games played. He appeared in 639 minor league games before he made his Orioles debut May 7 at Tampa Bay. "When Matt (Wieters) went down, some people were wondering how we'd fill that role," Britton said. "Caleb had a really good spring training and left a really good impression on some people there. He's a hard worker and we knew he'd come here and learn as much as possible. A lot of guys had a good rapport with him in spring training." Tough finale in Anaheim: Well, going into the series with the Angels, as hot as they were, having gone 25-5 in its last 30 home games, taking two of three would have seemed very solid for the Orioles. It still is, even with the disappointing bottom of the eighth last night. It was frustrating to see O's pitchers walk three straight hitters there to fall behind and to walk six on the night. Tough to waste a strong start by Chris Tillman. Against the highest-scoring team in the majors, O's pitchers worked to an ERA of 2.08 and O's starters pitched to an ERA of 1.77 in the series. In three games, the Angels scored just seven runs on 18 hits with just four extra-base hits and only one homer. They hit .189 in the series. Los Angeles went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position last night and 3-for-25 in the series. Tough to not get the sweep when the O's allowed just seven runs. Now they've had two tough late losses on this road trip. But, as Adam Jones would say, time to keep grinding. Now the Orioles head to their last stop of the 10-game West Coast swing. On to Seattle.