Quick Q&A with Orioles outfielder Kyle Stowers

SARASOTA – Kyle Stowers got married in November. He’s back to full health after a shoulder injury and fractured nose messed with his 2023 season. He’s surrounded by friends inside the Orioles spring clubhouse.

Life is good.

To make it better, he’d need to again break camp with the team. But it’s hard to kill his positive vibe.

Stowers went 2-for-30 with the Orioles but posted a .364 on-base percentage and .511 slugging percentage with 17 home runs in 68 games with the Norfolk Tides and won a Triple-A championship. He went 5-for-7 with a home run on a rehab assignment in the Florida Complex League and 9-for-18 with a double and three home runs with High-A Aberdeen.

The shoulder injury cost the 26-year-old Stowers two months of Norfolk’s season. He was down again after a fastball crashed into his face in an Aug. 29 game against Worcester.

I hung with Stowers at his locker yesterday morning for a brief chat. My vibe pretty much stayed the same, but this isn’t about me.

How do you process everything that happened last season?

“I think a number of things, but I think for me, the biggest takeaway right now is just got to stay healthy. Missing too many games last year, a lot of it was bad luck, and some of it was things I couldn’t control. But I just want to stay on the field as much as I can and kind of see what happens from there.”

Do you feel good about what you were able to do overall when you were on the field?

“You know, given the circumstances, absolutely. It was one of those years where it seemed like things would happen spread out. It didn’t feel like it all piled up at the same time. It felt like it was every six weeks, something happened, and so I think it made it tougher to get into a rhythm and I still feel like I handled it really well. I really was proud about the way I handled my business. I was the same person. I thought the performance on the field could have been better, but given the circumstances, I was happy with it.”

Is there anything positive you can take out of your major league time, when there weren’t many at-bats for you and obviously the overall numbers weren’t good, but they were much better in the minors? Is there anything that you gained with that experience with the Orioles?

“Yeah. I felt like myself around the clubhouse last year, and that would have made it a little bit tougher. I felt like part of the team, and obviously, I wanted to be a part of everything that was happening. I think for me, that was a good takeaway because I felt like I was myself.”

What happened with the shoulder?

“I just had some discomfort in the shoulder and ended up missing about two months. And then I ended up getting hit in the face later in the year. A couple of different things happened and dealt with it as best as I could.”

What was it specifically with the shoulder?

“Just inflammation.”

Was that the first time you’ve ever been hit by a pitch in the face?

“Yeah, it was. That was definitely scary. Definitely an experience I never really thought about going through. Obviously, you see it happen to people. It seems like every now and then it happens to guys, maybe once a year. For me, personally, I think I’ve seen it happen once a year. There’s a lot of emotions and feelings with that experience, and just tried to get back on the field as quickly as I could to get comfortable again.”

No time to react, obviously. The pitch is on you and there’s nothing you can do?

“Everyone was asking if I was sitting on a slider and a fastball ran in. Yeah, I just didn’t have time to react. And I think that’s a little bit of the discomforting thing about it, but it was just bad luck. I wasn’t able to get out of the way. And also, fortunate that it wasn’t worse, because to get out of there with a broken nose and a few stitches, of all the other scenarios that it could have been, I was definitely fortunate.”

How do you dig in in the box and not become antsy or keep bailing on anything close?

“I would say it was very intentional early on. Even before I was back on the field, basically once I got the bleeding to calm down it was immediately, ‘OK, let’s get a left-handed machine and let’s just start seeing pitches come back in.’ And then it was, start taking some swings. And then I was trying to get maybe a firmer machine that was kind of high and tight and get more comfortable seeing pitches from that angle, figuring out what I want to see, what I’m looking for. Got to get back on the horse, and the longer you wait, the more power you give it. So, for me, it was just trying to dive right back in and that was just the way that I handled it.”

How do you view your camp this year and the competition? While you were going through everything that you went through, Colton Cowser makes his major league debut and Heston Kjerstad makes his debut and is on the Division Series roster. Also left-handed hitting, gifted outfielders. How to you look at this whole thing?

“I think we’re all different players. I think for me, it’s just playing my game. I’ve said this for the last however many years is I’ve got to control what I do on the field, and I believe that if I’m playing my best baseball, that’s all I can do and the cards will fall as they do. We’re all competitive and we all want to do the best we can, and I think it’s a fun atmosphere to be in because it brings the best out of all of us.”