Delmarva's Sisco and Dosch rank among top South Atlantic League hitters plus other minor league notes

A look at a few notes from around the Orioles minor leagues as the big league club takes a day off before the start of tomorrow's homestand. Single-A Delmarva currently features two of the top four hitters in the South Atlantic League. Catcher Chance Sisco leads the league batting .347 and third baseman Drew Dosch is fourth at .334. The Orioles second-round draft pick last June, the 19-year-old Sisco is batting .393 in 35 games since the All-Star Game. He hit .404 in June and is batting .367 in July. For the season - over 83 games - the left-handed batter is hitting .347 with 21 doubles, one triple, four homers, 50 RBIs and a .896 OPS. Dosch, drafted in round seven in 2013 out of Youngstown State, is batting .382 in 36 games in the second half. He has had hitting streaks of 12 and 14 games this season. For the season in 102 games, the lefty batter who turned 22 last month is batting .334 with 16 doubles, two triples, four homers, 42 RBIs and a .817 OPS. Dosch's average has increased every month going from .290 in April to .324 in May, .340 in June and to .383 in July. Triple-A Norfolk lost 11-5 at Columbus on Sunday to snap its six-game winning streak, but they started another streak today. In a game that began at noon, Norfolk has beaten Columbus 6-5. The Tides have won 15 of their last 18 and are 18-7 in July. They are 10-1 in their last 11 one-run games. The Tides got off to a such a rough start that they are still eight games under .500 at 51-59 even after this recent surge. With the win today, Norfolk records its fifth consecutive series victory. When the current four-series winning streak began on July 8, the Tides had totaled four series victories on the season. Christian Walker is batting .310 in 12 games since moving to Triple-A with three doubles, two homers and nine RBIs. He hit his first Triple-A homer Sunday and his second today. Steve Lombardozzi has now hit safely in eight straight games, battting .387 (12-for-31) with four RBIs and seven runs scored. Lombardozzi has hit .375 with 10 RBIs during July. Outfielder Glynn Davis is batting .500 (9-for-18) with two doubles in his first five games for Double-A Bowie (54-54). Davis has three multi-hit games. He was promoted after batting .289 with 21 doubles, four triples, a homer and 31 RBIs in 89 games for Single-A Frederick. Right-hander Zach Davies threw seven innings allowing just one run in Thursday's Baysox win. Over his last seven starts, Davies, ranked as the O's No. 11 prospect by Baseball America, has allowed one or zero runs five times and is 5-2 with a 1.84 ERA. His 37 strikeouts over that time are tied for the fifth most in the league and his ERA is the third-lowest over the past month. Frederick third baseman Jason Esposito was batting .229 with an OPS of .607 at the end of June. But in 23 games this month, he is batting .349 with seven doubles, four homers, 15 RBIs and a .941 OPS. The Orioles second-round pick out of Vanderbilt in 2011, Esposito produced his first career two-homer game on Wednesday and has homered four times in his last five games. Short-season, Single-A Aberdeen got off to a terrible start, but has played much better the last several weeks. Since starting 1-16, the IronBirds have gone 13-12 for a 14-28 record for the season. Right-hander David Hess, the club's fifth-round pick out of Tennessee Tech is 1-1 with an ERA of 0.68 in five games for the IronBirds. Over 13 1/3 innings, he's allowed eight hits with three walks and 12 strikeouts. Some readers have asked about Carlos Diaz and Jomar Reyes the young infielders the Orioles acquired over the winter. The 17-year-old Diaz is playing first base for the Orioles' No. 2 Dominican Summer League team. In 46 games he's batting .233 with one homer and 14 RBIs. He is batting .173 this month. The 17-year-old Reyes is playing third base for the O's Gulf Coast League team. In 27 games he is hitting .253 with two homers and 10 RBIs. Reyes has a five-game hitting streak and is 8-for-21 with two triples in that stretch.