During the 'unseen hours' at Camden Yards, you can still find Ward in LF

This story was excerpted from Jake Rill's Orioles Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BALTIMORE -- Orioles manager Craig Albernaz has a time he refers to as the “unseen hours.” It’s the period early on the day of a game, or during an off-day, when the ballpark is completely empty, except for a smattering of players and coaches putting in extra work.

On the Orioles’ off-day this past Friday, two of the participants in the “unseen hours” at Camden Yards included first-base/outfield coach Jason Bourgeois and outfielder Taylor Ward.

Bourgeois had a fungo bat in hand, hitting one line drive after another to left field. Ward, meanwhile, repeatedly navigated the tricky wall configuration and attempted to field the balls as quickly as possible.

“They were all different. They all kind of caromed differently,” Ward said. “I’m curious with the differences with this left field and all the other left fields in the Major Leagues and how much space there is out there. I feel like this one probably has the most.”

There’s not quite as much ground to cover in left field now as there was from 2022-24 -- after pushing the wall back prior to the ‘22 season, the O’s pulled it back in some ahead of ‘25 -- but it can still feel cavernous to players patrolling the area. Ward is getting used to it, as the 32-year-old had played only 13 games at Camden before getting traded from the Angels to the Orioles on Nov. 19, with nine of those appearances coming in left.

Any type of adjustment can come with growing pains, which Ward has already experienced.

During the eighth inning of the Orioles’ Opening Day win last Thursday, the Twins’ Byron Buxton hit a 101.3 mph liner into the left-field corner. The ball deflected off the wall at a weird angle, and Ward didn’t play it as cleanly as he could have, as Buxton sped around the bases for a triple. (Buxton then immediately scored Minnesota’s lone run on Luke Keaschall’s sac fly.)

“The play with Buxton the other day woke me up a little bit. So you live and learn,” Ward said. “Definitely going to prevent that as much as possible. But then again, with that corner, you don’t want to fly in there too fast, either, to let it get by you. There’s just a happy medium with it.”

That play is also why Ward put in extra time for his defensive work the next day.

“Really, I should have done this stuff with J.B. before the first game. I’m kicking myself for that,” Ward said. “That’ll be another thing I do going into every series, is getting those corner balls and seeing how everything plays. Just got to get that work in, I think, is just the biggest thing, and prevent those things early.

“Instead of being reactive when they happen and then going out there, I’ve got to be more proactive.”

Ward has played both corners during his nine-year MLB career, though most of his time has been spent in left (including all but one of his defensive appearances since the start of 2023). He didn’t have his best showing in ‘25, ranking in the 53rd percentile with 0 outs above average and in the 51st percentile in arm strength, per Statcast. But he’s fared better before, including in ‘24, when his plus-4 OAA ranked in the 85th percentile and his arm strength was in the 72nd percentile.

Albernaz knows the Camden Yards configuration presents “a big learning curve” for Ward. The skipper even turned to Bourgeois in the first-base dugout at one point during the opening series and said, “That’s a lot of grass out in left field.”

But the Orioles are confident in Ward’s ability to handle left, where he’ll be nearly every day. He showed what he can do during the ninth inning of Sunday’s 8-6 win vs. the Twins, when Ward made a nice tumbling catch on a low liner off the bat of Matt Wallner.

“Taylor’s that type of dude where he’s going to put the work in,” Albernaz said. “That’s something that Taylor knows that he has to get comfortable with. ... It’s still going to take time to do it, but I’d bet on Taylor with his ability and also his work ethic that he’ll be fine out there.”