Grayson Rodriguez on mound tonight as Bowie closes in on playoffs (updated)

BOWIE - Led by a recent run of strong pitching, the Double-A Bowie Baysox have reeled off nine straight wins. Tonight, they send their ace to the mound here as they look to take another big step toward wrapping up a playoff berth in the Northeast.

Two teams will make the league's best-of-five championship series next week, and Bowie holds the No. 2 spot heading into tonight's games.

.623 - Akron (71-43)
.609 - Bowie (70-45)
.605 - Somerset (69-45)

If Bowie keeps winning, the Baysox will be in a great shape. Akron and Somerset are playing each other this week, so any Bowie win means they gain on one of those teams. A 3-2 Bowie finish should qualify them for postseason no matter what happens in the other series.

Right-hander Grayson Rodriguez gets the start tonight. In 22 starts this year between high Single-A Aberdeen and Bowie, he is 9-1 with a 2.39 ERA. Rodriguez, ranked as the best pitching prospect by Baseball America and MLBPipeline.com, is 6-1 with a 2.65 ERA in 17 starts with the Baysox.

During their nine-game win streak, Bowie has outscored the opposition 41-20, allowing three runs or fewer seven times. Bowie has won six of the nine games by two runs or one.

The Baysox swept Altoona 3-2 and 6-4 at Prince George's Stadium last night to extend their win streak. Infielder Patrick Dorrian came up big in both games. He hit a two-run homer in the first inning of the opener and produced a three-run double in the nightcap.

Dorrian has spent all year with Bowie. Over 107 games, he has hit .249/.367/.474/.841 with 21 doubles, two triples, 20 homers and 63 RBIs. Dorrian leads full-season players throughout the Orioles system in walk rate at 15.3 and ranks fifth in OPS.

"It's been very awesome to see him from the beginning of the year to where he is now," Bowie hitting coach Ryan Fuller said of Dorrian. "He's become much more confident in his approach, his swing and in making adjustments. Mentally, at the beginning of the year he would ride the wave with the highs and lows. But he's done a real nice job from the middle of the year to now staying even keel. That consistency will really pay dividends as he goes up levels.

"He knows the strike zone incredibly well. If it's a ball, he knows it's a ball and he can go opposite-field home run or pull-side home run. He uses the field really well, and that is a special feat for a Double-A player to control the zone like he does and spray the ball around the ballpark."

O's minor league homer leaders:

26 - Kyle Stowers, Norfolk
21 - Adley Rutschman, Norfolk
20 - Patrick Dorrian and Zach Watson, Bowie

Watson is the only player on the O's farm this year with 20 or more homers and 20 or more steals. Between high Single-A Aberdeen and Bowie, he has stolen 24 bases on 30 tries.

On that list above, the 6-foot, 160-pound Watson is the outlier in that he's not nearly as big as the rest. But he's shown the power this year, along with plus speed. And he is not even ranked right now as a top 30 prospect.

"Me and Pat always joke back and forth. If he hits a home run, I have to hit one and when I do, he has to hit one. It's all fun. But to be in the top of the organization's home run leaders, it means something for sure. It's very special," said Watson, drafted by the Orioles in round three in 2019 out of LSU.

Watson said the team is excited about the playoff push this week.

"You still have to take it day-by-day," he said. "But we're here, so you might as well win it all. We're still having fun and doing what we can do every night to win a ballgame. It's like coach (Jeff) Kunkel says, 'Today is the biggest day.'"

While Bowie has been on a nice pitching run recently and they have the big guy on the mound tonight, solid offense has carried this team through most of this year. The Baysox rank first in the 12-team league in runs scored (609) and walks (497), second in homers (163) and team OPS (.767), and third in OBP (.335) and slugging (.432).

Baysox walk it off: It looked like Bowie was heading to a win in a regulation nine innings, but they needed 10 tonight to produce a 5-4 walk-off win over Altoona. They are 71-45 with 10 wins in a row.

Altoona was down to its last strike in the top of the ninth when top 100 prospect Oneil Cruz hit a three-run homer for a 4-4 tie.

But Toby Welk's one-out RBI single in the last of the 10th ended the game as Bowie got a huge win to close in on a playoff berth. If the Baysox go 2-2 or better their last four games, they advance to next week's championship series. There are other scenarios that get them in also as their playoff chances keep improving this week.

The blown lead cost Rodriguez a win, but he threw yet another strong game. He went five innings tonight, allowing four hits and one run with no walks and five strikeouts on 68 pitches. Over his past three starts he has allowed just one run over 13 innings.

For the final time in the 2021 regular season...⛽️⬆️

Baysox starting lineups are presented by @UMCapitalRegion. https://t.co/ne6Av9KOwr #CheerHere #MiLBMajorFun pic.twitter.com/PK6g5xWoMZ

-- Bowie Baysox (@BowieBaysox) September 15, 2021