Taylor Ward is early leader for Most Valuable Oriole; A Sterling career

The Orioles’ season is not even a quarter over, but it’s never too early to speculate on who might be the Most Valuable Oriole.

Through 37 games, my choice is Taylor Ward.

When the Orioles made the stunning trade of often-injured starter Grayson Rodriguez, who’s yet to pitch for the Los Angeles Angels this season, they received Ward, who was a season away from free agency.

Rodriguez had three more seasons of club control.

The Orioles knew they needed better right-handed hitters, and besides Ward, they signed first baseman Pete Alonso, who hit his seventh home run in the team’s 7-4 win over the Miami Marlins on Wednesday night.

The leftfielder, who hit a career-high 36 home runs and 103 RBIs last season for the Angels, was overlooked in the excitement over the Alonso signing.

Besides those 36 homers, Ward struck out 175 times, which would have led the Orioles last season.

He also walked 75 times, another career high.

Ward struck out twice in the Orioles’ second straight win. He also walked three times and scored each time. He has more walks (34) than strikeouts (27). He’s hitting .285 with an .842 OPS and has a phenomenal .434 on-base percentage.

The Orioles have Adley Rutschman, who was the MVO winner in 2022, and Gunnar Henderson, who won it in 2023 and 2024. They also have Alonso, who could help carry the club over the final three-quarters of the season.

For now, it’s Ward, who’s only hit one home run but has 13 doubles.

It’s quite a turnaround for Ward, who’s always had at least twice as many strikeouts to walks in each season.

“I like that stat,” manager Craig Albernaz said last week. “I like that stat for all of our hitters.”

Only centerfielder Leody Taveras with 19 strikeout and 15 walks is remotely close to Ward.

“The impressive thing about Taylor is to have that strikeout-to-walk ratio,” Albernaz said. “It’s really hard to do. It’s not the physical. It’s the mental bandwidth. You have to lock in on every single at-bat, and Taylor does not give any at-bat away. Every at-bat when he’s in the box, is the biggest at-bat for him.

“Every time you look up is a 2-2 or a 3-2 count. He does a great job of sticking to his plan … He’s never out of an at-bat. He might have two bad swings for an 0-2 count, but he’s taking in information and he makes the adjustment quickly.

“We have to learn at a faster rate than our opponents and Taylor, he’s the poster child for that. He’s taking in information and learning on the fly in the at-bat and he’s able to make adjustments pitch-to-pitch, and that’s what elite hitters do.”

Remembering John Sterling

During spring training, the Orioles signed infielder Thairo Estrada, who wouldn’t come close to making the team. When I walked over to introduce myself to Estrada, who didn’t speak much English and used team translator Brandon Quinones, I couldn’t resist.

Estrada hit four home runs for the New York Yankees in 61 games in 2019 and 2020, and John Sterling had a special call for his home runs.

“Thairo hits the ball to Cairo,” Sterling would yell.

I repeated that to Estrada, who laughed heartily.

It seems that all Yankees enjoyed Sterling’s folksy calls, and so did I. I was an unabashed admirer.

Most people remember his calls for Aaron Judge, Alex Rodriguez and Bernie Williams.

I remember his for Estrada, and for former Oriole Aaron Hicks: “Hicks hits it to the sticks!” My ultimate favorite was for Kyle Hagashioka: “Hagashioka, the home run stroka!” which I only repeated about 10,000 times in the press box.

I didn’t know Sterling well. He would always say hello when he saw me but didn’t know who I was because he didn’t have a computer or smartphone and couldn’t read what I had written.

As a high school student in New York, I remembered him as a feisty talk show host. “Give it a rest!” he’d yell to an objectionable caller.

I listened regularly and learned he had been a talk show host in Baltimore in the mid-’60s and early ’70s. He looked upon those days fondly, and I was delighted when he told me he lived in an apartment building just two blocks from our longtime home. He was surprised when I told him it was still standing.

Sterling also told me that I would be surprised to know that there was a time when athletes and sports reporters, both print and broadcast, would socialize. He was a good athlete and became close friends with former Baltimore Bullets player Kevin Loughery.

My favorite Sterling story came about 30 years ago after an Orioles-Yankees game was rained out. As I was walking out of the ballpark, he was standing there and asked if I could drive him to his hotel.

“I’ll pay you cab rates,” he said.

I was thrilled to drive John and his engineer about five minutes away and, no, I didn’t want cab rates.

I was lucky enough to be at Yankee Stadium on the day he died and marveled at all the tributes for a unique broadcaster, who did it his way.

Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: Rich@BaltimoreBaseball.com