On Wednesday, Adley Rutschman hit his first Triple-A home run. The same day, MLB Pipeline declared what Baseball America had weeks earlier: that Rutschman represented half of the sport’s top prospect battery.
In the estimation of both entities, Rutschman is the game’s No. 1 prospect and thus its top position player in the minors. Double-A Bowie right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, likewise, is baseball’s top pitching prospect, an assertion he agrees with. They are both in the Orioles’ farm system.
But neither has arrived in Baltimore, and it’s doubtful either will during a season in which the big league club’s record has plummeted to the worst in the majors thanks to a 15-game losing streak.