Norfolk Tides beat Durham, win first International League championship since 1985

NORFOLK — The Norfolk Tides won Thursday in the most Norfolk Tides way possible: with prospects and pitching.

And now one of the most stacked teams in the minor leagues has made history.

Uber-prospects Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo homered and four pitchers combined for a three-hit shutout to lift the Tides to a 7-0 win over the Durham Bulls in the decisive third game of the International League Championship Series at Harbor Park.

The league title is Norfolk’s first since 1985, long before the 19-year-old Holliday or any of his teammates were born.

The victory came mere moments after the parent Baltimore Orioles clinched the American League East title at Camden Yards, meaning that champagne was flying through both clubhouses simultaneously.

“It means a lot, man,” said Tides manager Buck Britton, who made the playoffs just once as a player and had never won a title as a manager. “And that was kind of the message to these guys: You don’t know when it’s going to happen, if it’s going to happen again. We’re very fortunate. Our major league team’s just clinched the division as well, so it’s good day for the organization.”

Mayo, the fourth-ranked prospect in the organization, went 4 for 4 with a double and four RBIs. His two-run homer in the eighth inning accounted for the final margin.

“It’s kind of surreal,” the 21-year-old Mayo said on the field as his teammates celebrated around him. “I’m kind of trying to take in the moment a little bit. This is an amazing accomplishment for this organization. It’s unreal.”

Mayo’s opposite-field shot to right came three batters after Holliday, the top prospect in all of baseball, yanked a no-doubt solo blast to right to make it 5-0.

“It’s really cool,” Holliday said when asked about the high-stakes homer. “Very exciting. Hopefully, I can do that for many years to come in the big leagues. It was a really cool moment for me to be able to kind of cap off the game a little bit, kind of put them away.”

Added Britton: “I thought the place was going to come down when Jackson hit that home run.”

By virtue of the series win, the Tides will travel to Las Vegas to face the Pacific Coast League champion Oklahoma City Dodgers on Saturday night in the Triple-A National Championship Game.

Before that, an announced crowd of 6,469 watched as starter Cade Povich and relievers Kyle Dowdy (1-0), Wandisson Charles and Nick Vespi completely stifled the Bulls.

Povich, the organization’s 11th-ranked prospect, allowed three hits in four shutout innings and left with a 4-0 lead. The left-hander walked three and struck out four, and Durham had just three baserunners the rest of the way.

When Vespi, a left-hander, stared in at Durham’s Evan Edwards with two outs in the ninth, the masses waved rally towels and chanted.

When Vespi struck Edwards out on a 1-2 slider, the mayhem reached a crescendo. Norfolk’s players flooded onto the field and exchanged shouts, smiles and long hugs.

“It’s incredible, man,” Britton said. “The whole pitching staff tonight was just unbelievable.

“We threw a shutout in a do-or-die game.”

It was the completion of a harrowing comeback. The Tides faced elimination after falling 10-5 in the first game in the best-of-three series. They won 7-2 Wednesday before their dominant performance in the rubber match.

Asked when he thought his team might have the series sewn up, Mayo didn’t hesitate.

“After we lost the first game,” he said. “We were confident coming in. Never a doubt in this group. Unreal group of guys, unreal organization right now. There’s not a better feeling in the world.”

Ken Young could relate. The Tides’ president, he led an ownership group that bought the team in the early 1990s.

Thursday marked Young’s first title, and he didn’t get to share it with longtime club executive Dave Rosenfield, who died in 2017 after more than 50 years of employment.

“For one thing, it’s just a thrill to be on top of the International League, knowing we’ve been striving for this in my 30 years of ownership,” Young said. “I think it’s just so great for everybody. I will tell you, too, certainly, Dave Rosenfield is in my thoughts and has been all day. It’s a great feeling. I almost can’t put it into words.”

On a hazy, misty evening with weather in the 60s and a howling wind blowing toward the right-field corner, the Tides banged out 11 hits, including four for extra bases.

Connor Norby, an infielder who spent the entire season with Norfolk, went 2 for 5 with a triple.

The game was played on a field prepared by head groundskeeper Kenny Magner for the final time. Months ago, Magner announced his plans to retire after 50 years with the Tides, dating back to the days at old Met Park.

Magner and his crew had their work cut out for them.

A light mist fell for about half of the game, making visibility a challenge on fly balls and pop-ups and affecting pitchers’ ability to grip the ball. The grounds crew had to tend to the soggy mound a handful of times.

Mayo hit a two-run ground-rule double to right to give Norfolk a 2-0 lead in the first. The ball, which was lost in a tough twilight sky by right fielder Ruben Cardenas, was initially ruled a home run. But the umpires conferred and correctly concluded that it had bounced on the warning track.

Two batters and a wild pitch later, Joey Ortiz followed with an RBI fielder’s choice to score Mayo on a close play at the plate.

The Tides hit Durham from all angles, showing the depth of a team carrying seven of the top 11 prospects in the Orioles’ organization.

With the parent club whooping it up back in Baltimore, Orioles farm director Matt Blood watched some of his charges do the same in Norfolk.

“First of all, it’s a lot of fun,” Blood said. “But I’ll say that it just sort of shows the state of the organization right now. For us to have the best team in the AL and the best team in all of Triple-A clinching on the same night, I don’t think that happens very often. It’s just a real proud moment for the entire organization.”

Holliday, the first overall draft pick in 2022, was playing high school ball in Oklahoma earlier that year.

He began this season in low Class A and played at four levels, earning Minor League Player of the Year honors from Baseball America a year after being named the magazine’s top high school player.

Standing on Magner’s pristine infield, Holliday took it all in.

“It’s really special to be able to win a championship of any sort,” Holliday said. “I’m very excited. Especially to be able to win the Triple-A championship after starting in low A is pretty cool. I’m very happy to be in this organization. We have a great group of guys.”

David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com.