Minor league notes on Townsend, Davis and Pena

The Frederick Keys will be getting their regular first baseman back today as Tyler Townsend has been activated from the disabled list for today's 6 p.m. home game vs. Wilmington He has been out since June 8 with a hamstring injury. He has been one of the Carolina League's best hitters this year batting .317 in 52 games with 19 doubles, 10 homers, 39 RBIs and an OPS of .915. At the time of his injury, he was batting .394 with two homers and eight RBIs in eight games in June. Townsend takes the roster spot of Tyler Kolodny, who is going on the DL with a left wrist injury. Outfielder Trent Mummey, who has also been out with a hamstring injury, remains on the DL with no timetable set yet for his return. The Orioles Gulf Coast League team is off to a 3-3 start and Glynn Davis and Jerome Pena are both off to fast starts in that league. Davis is the player out of Catonsville Community College in Baltimore that the Orioles signed after the 2010 draft. They gambled that no team would take Davis in the draft and no one did, even though the Orioles felt he had top-10 round talent. Davis had been out all year with a back injury until recently, but he is 9-for-18 in five GCL games as the center fielder for that team. He has two doubles, four runs, four walks and a 1.369 OPS. Davis is 6-for-9 in his last two games. I wrote about Davis and how the O's acquired him last August. The GCL second baseman, Pena is the O's 38th-round draft pick this year out of TCU. He is 10-for-19 so far for an average of .526. He has three doubles, one triple and an OPS of 1.361. The Aberdeen IronBirds now have two 2011 draft picks on their roster in pitcher Trent Howard and catcher Adam Davis. A lefty, Howard is a 7th-round pick out of Central Michigan, where he went 4-4 this year with an ERA of 2.78 and 96 strikeouts over 87 1/3 innings. Davis, taken in round 11 out of Illinois, hit .290 this year for the Illini with five homers and 33 RBIs in 57 games and was the MVP of the Big Ten tourney. Neither player has been in a game yet for Aberdeen. Two pitchers that have been with Aberdeen on injury-rehab assignments, Eddie Gamboa and Brandon Cooney, are expected to rejoin Bowie in the next day or two.