Shorebird of the week 8-23-2007

Ryan Ouellette on the hill during a recent game against Kannapolis.

With the season coming to a close, one can start doing the postmortem on what successes and failures our Shorebirds had as a team. In general, our starting pitching was pretty solid but there were times the bullpen really let us down.

It was during one of those times that the O’s sent us some help from Aberdeen. One pitcher in that transaction back in July was this week’s SotW, Ryan Ouellette. Ryan has delivered a number of outstanding performances since his promotion and might parlay that into returning for 2008 to where he began the 2007 season, up in Frederick.

Last season Ryan was a 13th round selection by the Orioles out of Indian River Community College. The Floridian was sent to Bluefield to work as a starter and really didn’t do all that well, 2-8 with a 6.66 ERA. So it may have been a case of being overmatched two levels up in Frederick to start the year, but after being reassigned to Aberdeen and putting together a half-dozen respectable outings, he was brought up to what’s probably the most appropriate level for his development here in Delmarva. The smallish 21 year old (just 5′-11″ and 185 as listed) may have a better chance of advancement as a reliever, at least based on this season’s body of work.

For the Shorebirds, Ryan has a 2-0 record and a sparkling 1.84 ERA in 29 1/3 innings of work. Generally he’s been a 7th to 8th inning guy, averaging about 2 innings per appearance. But what he’s done best is just plain get guys out, shown by his .202 average against and a WHIP of 0.99. In other words, he allows less than one runner per inning and it’s really tough to score that way.

With this season coming to a close, it may be determined in spring training next year whether we’ll keep Ryan for the 2008 Shorebird staff or if he gets another shot at Frederick. Given the numbers he has here, he’ll certainly place himself in the mix for a promotion.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.