New season means finally moving on from the last one (Tides score 12 runs)

One of many good things about the fact the 2024 Orioles season has begun is that we will stop hearing about the Texas series and the Orioles being swept in the American League Division Series.

A new year thankfully leads to media asking less about that and the players certainly are glad to stop answering for it and about it.

“I use it for fuel a little bit. But that was last year and this is a new year,” the O’s Gunnar Henderson said this week, probably speaking for just about all of us.

After a 101-win season followed up by their convincing Opening Day romp over the Los Angeles Angels, the O’s are seen as World Series contenders for this season.

They are now the hunted and not the hunters, so to speak.

“Everybody is going to give us their best shot. I mean, that is what you want when you’re playing. We want to continue to play Oriole baseball. We’ve proven we can win, so just continue to do that,” said Henderson, who went 1-for-4 with a walk and run scored in the opener.

The Orioles begin this season with a host of talented players with their Triple-A team including Jackson Holliday. Henderson is confident those players will keep their attitudes and intensity up even though they didn’t start the year in the majors.

“It’s definitely different from years past. Because, obviously we’ve won a lot of games. The years before that it was work your way up and when you’re ready, you’ll be there. Definitely different. But it’s a good situation to be in. I feel like they understand that and they are just going to continue to do their thing and all they can do is keep playing hard,” he said.

Minor league injured lists: The Orioles announced Friday that several minor league players are heading to 60-day injured lists.

The 60-day list at Double-A Bowie includes right-handed pitchers Tyler Burch and Peter Van Loon. Van Loon is on here in part as he is being built up as a starting pitcher.

On the list at High-A Aberdeen are right-handers Cooper Chandler and Daniel Lloyd and infielder Luis Valdez.

At Delmarva, infielder Maikol Hernandez and right-hander Pablo Falconett go to the 60-day IL.

The Florida Complex League Orioles add right-handers Anthony Morillo and Yonatan Pineda to the list along with outfielder Raylin Ramos. The FCL club put right-hander Pedro Figueroa on the full-season IL, meaning he will miss the entire season.

Also on Friday, Triple-A Norfolk put infielder Terrin Vavra (right shoulder) and outfielder Hudson Haskin (left hip impingement) on the seven-day IL after offseason surgeries. The Tides added infielder/outfielder Billy Cook to their roster ahead of last night’s season opener.

By the way, we are seeing a lot of clubs, including the Orioles, place more minor league players this year on 60-day injured lists. One reason for this is such players do not count against an organization’s domestic reserve list total of 165 players.

Earlier, other minor league players went on team 60-day injured lists. 

Norfolk put lefty Jakob Hernandez and righty Nathan Webb on 60-day lists and they have right-handed pitcher Noah Denoyer on the full season IL.

Bowie put pitcher Jean Pinto on the full-season IL after he underwent Tommy John surgery in March and pitcher Connor Loeprich is on the 60-day.

Aberdeen right-handers Daniel Federman and Reese Sharp are on the full-season IL.

At Delmarva, several players previously went on the full-season IL. They are right-handers Hugo Beltran, Wyatt Cheney, Trey Nordmann and Andry Mercedes and outfielder Adam Crampton. 

Holliday homers, Tides scored a dozen runs: The Triple-A Norfolk Tides opened their season last night with three top 100 prospects batting among their first four hitters. Jackson Holliday, MLB's No. 1 prospect, led off the last of the first with a left-on-left homer and an inning later Norfolk scored seven runs. When Holliday delivered a two-run single in the fourth, the Tides led 10-0. His homer was his first career homer versus a lefty pitcher.

Norfolk had 17 hits in a 12-8 win over Durham.

The win was far from perfect as Norfolk pitching walked nine and they made four errors - one each from Holliday and Heston Kjerstad and two by Coby Mayo.

But Holliday went 3-for-5 and drove in four runs. Connor Norby went 4-for-6 with a double and two RBIs. Kjerstad and Mayo had two hits each. The four players combined to go 11-for-21 with three doubles, a homer, four runs and eight RBIs. Kyle Stowers went 1-for-4 with an RBI so it was 12-for-25 with nine RBIs among the five players. 

Starting pitcher Chayce McDermott, the 2023 O's Jim Palmer Award winner as top Minor League pitcher, allowed one hit and one run in 4 1/3 innings on 85 pitches. He fanned six but walked five. He got 15 whiffs on 34 swings and averaged 93.4 mph on his fastball. 

This was a rare win for the Tides in an opener on the Orioles' watch. Since becoming a Baltimore affiliate in 2007, Norfolk is now 3-14 on Opening Day. 

From Tides Twitter, see Holliday's homer here and highlights also from Norby here and Kjerstad here.