Receiving lackluster offense from their middle infield spots in recent weeks, the Orioles have finally made the call to Triple-A prospect Jordan Westburg.
According to ESPN, the 24-year-old has been summoned to Baltimore and will make his major league debut against Cincinnati on Monday night. Westburg was not in the Norfolk lineup on Sunday and has spent more than a calendar year with the Tides, collecting a whopping 81 extra-base hits over 714 plate appearances in the International League dating back to last June. In 301 plate appearances this season, the 30th pick of the 2020 draft out of Mississippi State is batting .295 with 18 home runs, 15 doubles, two triples, 54 runs batted in, and a .939 on-base plus slugging percentage, numbers that were screaming for a promotion to the majors.
Westburg entered 2023 as a consensus top 100 prospect in all of baseball and currently ranks as the Orioles’ No. 3 MLB Pipeline prospect behind only Single-A Aberdeen shortstop Jackson Holliday and Triple-A outfielder Colton Cowser. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Westburg was also the organization’s 2022 minor league player of the year.
With Westburg having started games at shortstop, third base, second base, and both corner outfield spots this season, how manager Brandon Hyde deploys him should be interesting, especially with shortstop Jorge Mateo struggling dramatically at the plate since early May and second baseman Adam Frazier having a poor June. Most of Westburg’s starts have come on the left side of the infield this season, and rookie third baseman Gunnar Henderson has also received some starts at shortstop recently.
The Orioles will need to make room on the 40-man roster in addition to the 26-man roster for Westburg. Rookie infielder Joey Ortiz has played sparingly since being recalled from Norfolk on June 14, making only two starts and appearing in two other games over that time.
