“They kept the band together.” Tides’ core group survives MLB trade deadline

At one point as the clock ticked seemingly louder Tuesday afternoon, the core of the Norfolk Tides’ offense sat together in a Harbor Park office, a collective bundle of nerves.

Infielders Connor Norby, Joey Ortiz, Coby Mayo and outfielders Kyle Stowers and Heston Kjerstad — all of them current or one-time elite Baltimore Orioles prospects — held a stressful, makeshift summit as Major League Baseball’s 6 p.m. trade deadline inched agonizingly closer.

“Take a mental picture,” Norby said to a club employee, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen any minute or at the end of the day.

“I was like, ‘This would really suck if one of us was gone after today.’ ”

Norby, one of a handful of Norfolk players rumored to be on the Orioles’ trading block, described Tuesday and the days leading up to it as “very, very stressful.” The Tides have been one of the best teams in the minors all season, and Norby and his teammates didn’t want to see any mass changes.

But the deadline came and went, and Norfolk’s core stayed put.

Or, as Norby put it: “They kept the band together.”

Despite rampant speculation, the Tides lost just three players Tuesday. The Orioles dealt reliever Eduard Bazardo to the Seattle Mariners for right-hander Logan Rinehart fairly early in the afternoon. Then minutes before 6 p.m., word came down that infielder Cesar Prieto and lefty Drew Rom had been dealt along with a lower-level right-hander to the St. Louis Cardinals for major league starting righty Jack Flaherty.

Norfolk manager Buck Britton was glad most of his group stayed intact.

”From my standpoint, yeah, it was great,” Britton said, adding that he’d read that Orioles GM Mike Elias had said the club took some “big swings” during trade talks.

“I think (the Orioles) were fortunate that they got the guy they wanted. We were able to keep what we wanted.”

The Tides attacked Tuesday’s stress with humor. One rumored trade target was Chicago White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease. Norfolk happened to be playing Chicago’s top affiliate, Charlotte, that evening, so jokes flew around the clubhouse and at batting practice about the possibility of having to change dugouts before that night’s game.

When someone joked to Norby that Charlotte’s clubhouse manager had asked for his hat size, he rolled his eyes and said, “Everybody’s funny today.”

He then sat down in the Tides’ first-base dugout and said to no one in particular, “Is it 6:01 yet?”

Kjerstad, who has played professionally for just over a calendar year, was asked Tuesday afternoon about the prospect of being traded. The 24-year-old former second overall draft pick made it clear where he wants to be.

“The team that drafts you, they’re the team that has the most interest in you and wants you the most,” Kjerstad said. “So that’s the team I always want to stay with. So I want to stay with the O’s and everything like that for my whole career.”

The Tides, who are already in the International League playoffs by virtue of their first-half title, can now set their sites on winning a league championship. If they do, they’ll play in the Triple-A National Championship Game on Sept. 30 in Las Vegas.

“We want to go to Vegas and we want to win and we want to play for a championship,” Norby said Saturday. “I think that’s kind of what my goal has been. I want to finish getting better here and my development here, and I would love to be an Oriole for however long God wants me to. But at the end of the day, whatever God’s plan was for me, I have to trust it.”

Britton, a former Norfolk utilityman, said he understood why the parent club kept its deadline moves to a minimum.

“I don’t know if it’s a relief, per se,” Britton said. “But I’m glad that we had enough assets that the big league team got what they feel like they needed. I’m happy to still have the guys that I do in this room.

“You look up there, you’ve got the best team in the American League. I think they needed another starter. I think they realized that for a number of reasons — reasons I don’t even know about.”

Norby, a former East Carolina star, admitted that finally seeing 6:01 on the clock was “somewhat of a relief,” adding that Norfolk’s core group has grown especially close.

That mental picture he suggested remains a real one.

“We have great friendships and great relationships,” Norby said. “It’s been a lot of fun every single night going out with them on the field and doing what we’ve been doing. We learn off each other, we build off each other, we compete with each other and we love playing with each other. That was the biggest thing, and that would’ve been hard to say goodbye to.”

David Hall, [email protected]. Twitter @DavidHallVP.

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