Shorebird of the Week – June 9, 2016

Baseball is a team sport, and to have a successful team all the players have to do their part – even if it’s a little bit unexpected.

For Gerrion Grim, it hasn’t been the greatest season. He tends to be the odd man out in the outfield rotation, which means he’s only appeared in 22 games all season. In the month of May, he endured a 2-for-28 batting slump that’s continued with a 1-for-6 June. If you’re averaging one AB a day, you’re likely not too high on the totem pole. His stats are reflective of this, as Gerrion entered last night’s contest against West Virginia with a modest .217 batting average, for which he was sitting on the bench for the third game in a row Tuesday night.

Tuesday’s game at West Virginia turned out to be the second long game in succession for both teams: after battling to a 13-inning win over the Power Monday night, the Shorebirds came to the bottom of the 16th inning on Tuesday having finally secured an 8-3 advantage in the top half. But when the last available man in the bullpen began to falter by giving up a run and leaving the bases loaded, manager Ryan Minor turned to Grim to make his pro pitching debut and he earned the save by retiring the last two batters in the 8-4 win.

Grim, a 22 year old who the Orioles selected in the 14th round of the 2014 draft, is a St. Louis-area native who hails from Jefferson College in Missouri. It may seem a rather obscure school but as a Tigers fan growing up I rooted for a pitcher who attended the school, Mike Henneman. Also coming from there is longtime MLB hurler Mark Buehrle, who lived by the mantra of “work fast, throw strikes.” Grim, who had pitched a few innings at the college level. induced a popup and strikeout to close the game in just five pitches, so perhaps the college’s tradition lives on.

The Orioles aren’t strangers to moving position players to the mound – just ask Mychal Givens how that’s worked out – so if the batting doesn’t improve (and Grim only has a .227 career average in mostly GCL play) maybe he could be a success on the hill.