Sacred Heart Prep  graduate Andrew Daschbach promoted to Double-A by Baltimore Orioles

“It’s changed because when I was in Aberdeen, we were so far out of the mix it didn’t really matter,” Daschbach said. “I didn’t think it was going to be a factor. Then last week when I got called up it was a little bit different atmosphere. … People realize there’s something more on the line.”

Bowie is currently riding a four-game winning streak and Daschbach is a big reason why. In five games since his promotion, the right-handed hitting first baseman — who graduated from Sacred Heart Prep in 2016 — has homered three times, including a two-run shot in the top of the 10th that proved to be the game winner in last Friday’s 5-3 victory over Reading.

It was Daschbach’s second home run of the night — his first multi-home run game since his junior year at Stanford when he hit four homers in a single game May 14, 2019, against Cal Poly — and he went on to continue the power show Sunday with a solo shot in the 10th in an 11-8 extra-inning win.

Not bad for Daschbach’s first full season of professional baseball. He was drafted in the 11th round by the Orioles in 2019 and hit for a modest .222 batting average at Short-Season Aberdeen later that year. He got off to a slow start this season, logging a .185 average through his first full month at High-A Aberdeen. But he has improved with each calendar month, hitting .265 in June, .284 in July, and is currently batting .361 over two different levels in August.

“It’s very early so I’m not going to act like I have it all figured out,” Daschbach said. “But it’s fun to have some success in this first week (in Double-A).”

Daschbach spent a long turn in Aberdeen, with the IronBirds’ being reassigned from Short-Season to the High-A level this season. In fact, it was the only city he’d ever called home in his professional career until last week. But for someone who grew up a self-proclaimed baseball junkie, the baseball wonderland was a perfect landing spot.

FOrioles great Cal Ripken Jr. — who made up half of one of the great father-son combos in major league history along with former Orioles manager Cal Sr. — founded the Aberdeen IronBirds in 2002 and four years later opened The Ripken Experience, an amateur baseball complex located across the street from the IronBirds’ home of Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium.

On his last day in Aberdeen, however, Daschbach embraced his own father-son act, as his father Mark was in town for a three-week vacation.

“It feels like every time he comes to town, I get hot, so maybe he needs to start coming more,” Daschbach said.

It was Mark’s last day in town and, following a Sunday game Aug. 15, Daschbach was in a hurry to depart the postgame locker room to meet him for a sendoff dinner. That’s when he got called into the manager’s office, though, and was informed — along with teammates Jordan Westburg and JD Mundy — he was being promoted to Double-A.

Mark, meanwhile, was in the parking lot texting Daschbach to ask what was taking him so long.

“I got to walk out and tell him I was promoted which was an exciting moment,” Daschbach said. “And he was fired up to say the least.”

It took a long time for Daschbach to gather momentum in his professional career, however. And the lost season of 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic didn’t help. Not only did Daschbach miss a full year of baseball, he spent the layoff retooling his mechanics, developing a quieter, stiller approach at the plate.

And things didn’t exactly go as planned.

“I ran a little bit too far with it without the coaching supervision for 14 months,” Daschbach said. “So, I kind of went back to the drawing board.”

Daschbach finally locked in with a different approach, narrowing his batting stance and raising his hands, which added more rhythm at the plate, he said. It ultimately inspired the leap Daschbach was looking to make by reaching Double-A by the end of his first full pro season.

“That was definitely my goal going into the season was to get promoted,” Daschbach said. “With that being said, the way I came out I thought there was not a chance with a .185 batting average through the first [month] of the year.”