Jon Meoli: In Taylor Ward, Orioles rookie Dylan Beavers sees much worth emulating

It took 101 plate appearances for Taylor Ward to hit his first home run in an Orioles uniform, yet you can’t spend much time around the club without someone extolling the quality of the 100 that preceded that blast.

One player in particular is watching closely as he looks to establish himself in the big leagues as the type of player Ward is — one whose consistent approach and elite plate discipline make him an at-bat his team can depend on. The raw skills are there for Dylan Beavers, the Orioles’ 24-year-old rookie outfielder. And he’s taking in everything he can from Ward to help him reach that level.

“That’s my goal, hopefully sooner than later, just to get to be someone like him in the lineup, where it’s every at-bat he’s a tough out,” Beavers said. “You know what you’re going to get out of him, from our dugout. We know, every time he gets in the box, it’s going to be a competitive at-bat. You know he’s not going to go take a selfish at-bat and try to swing at everything. He stays to his plan and his approach, and I think that’s a consistent recipe for success.

“I feel you can show up and do that on a nightly basis. It’s not as easy to show up and hit two homers every night. It’s more attainable to just stack consistent at-bats. It’s definitely where I want to be at some point.”

Ward, acquired last fall from the Los Angeles Angels in a trade that sent Grayson Rodriguez west, came to the Orioles after a career-best 36 home runs, and even as the first one took a few weeks to leave the park, he’s been impacting the top of the lineup for weeks.

Ward has an .883 OPS, thanks to his league-leading 13 doubles but also because of the walks he’s drawing by staying in the strike zone at an unprecedented level. No qualified player entered Monday swinging at pitches outside the strike zone less often than Ward’s 11%, and even if he was around his career average of 21.3%, he’d still be among the most disciplined hitters in the game.

Beavers boasts that kind of approach as well. He chased 20.4% of the time in Triple-A last year before coming to the big leagues and posting an 18.9% chase rate. It was 23.5% entering Monday

Manager Craig Albernaz previously alluded to an illness that has limited Beavers, and the rookie has a .679 OPS in 78 plate appearances, with a 9% walk rate.

Albernaz said the way Beavers controls his at-bats stood out on video when he took the job and dove into his new roster last fall.

“His at-bat quality has been great,” Albernaz said Wednesday. “Just like any young player, there’s always at-bats he would want to get back, you know, where you’re chasing the changeups underneath the zone, and that’s something that he identifies with, but the way he handles the at-bat, especially against lefties, to me, that’s what really stands out. He can manage the at-bat. The ability to get to first base against lefties is real.”

Those opportunities will likely continue to come as the Orioles are missing key parts of their lineup against left-handed starters. Beavers think he’s “getting better and better” at consistently applying his approach as he sees more major league time.

“You have access to everything you can imagine as far as training room, weight room stuff goes,” he said. “You have no excuse not to be prepared. I feel like I’m definitely doing a good job of that, and I like where it’s at.”

That Beavers is focused on how he prepares for games comes from watching Ward, from the moment they arrive at the ballpark until the moment they leave. He called Ward “a real pro,” noting he never strays from his routine before the game with his mobility and physical prep, nor after it, when Beavers says Ward is routinely in the weight room. Watching Ward has made Beavers more diligent in how he takes care of his body.

“I feel like sometimes it’s easy to show up and run through the motions with tedious mobility stuff and getting reps to go start your activity,” Beavers said. “Sometimes you just want to jump right into everything, but I feel like, this year, I really haven’t done that. I’ve been pretty strict and in a routine about my prep and what I do, moving into the workday.”

Given they operate on similar schedules in terms of when they do pregame defensive drills and when they hit, Beavers and Ward are often moving in tandem through a day’s worth of baseball work.

Pitch recognition is partially a gift one either has or doesn’t and partially something that can be trained. Beavers is beginning to realize, for his approach to best be applied — and for him by extension to be the best version of himself — everything in his game needs to be set.

“Everyone’s going to chase; it’s just that hard,” Beavers said. “Hitting is not easy, but I think just having the consistent routine makes it so, when you get in a game, you really don’t have to think much about it. You know what your plan is. You’ve done all the preparation.

“I think the consistency in the prep makes it so that he can be more consistent in the game. It’s not like he’s going to chase consistently, basically. I think, if you just have a repeatable preparation, it’s going to be more repeatable in the game.”