North Medford product in his comfort zone as a key contributor this summer for the Medford Rogues

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home for Aiden Horsley here in Southern Oregon.

And there’s no place like his home away from home at Harry & David Field, where Horsley has spent considerable time chasing his baseball dreams ever since he was a teenager.

It’s that innate comfortability that has drawn Horsley back again this summer to fine-tune his skills on the diamond as an outfielder for the Medford Rogues.

“I’m very excited to be back; I love playing at home,” says Horsley, instantly clicking back to memories made at the ballpark through his days in the North Medford High program, with the Medford Mustangs or even roaming the concourse as a kid watching that year’s batch of Rogues take the field.

“I’m very comfortable here,” he adds. “Being able to live at home and still play baseball is the biggest thing, but, obviously, I’ve played hundreds of games at Harry & David FIeld, so I kind of know what I’m doing there. It definitely helps with comfortability and feeling relaxed.”

That has certainly shown through thus far, with Horsley serving as one of the Rogues’ top hitters and most versatile defenders for first-year manager Kevin Olmstead.

Horsley recently missed a few games due to a strained groin muscle, but he’s made a good home in the leadoff spot in the batting order and any one of the three outfield locations Olmstead needs him to occupy on a given night.

Horsley enters a two-game series with reigning Pacific Empire League champion Healdsburg with a .340 batting average — a .403 on-base average — to go with 15 runs scored and 16 RBIs in 16 games played. He’s drawn four walks and been hit by a pitch six times against only five strikeouts to help the Rogues apply pressure on the defense from the top spot.

“With my leadoff batter, I don’t like a lot of strikeouts,” says Olmstead. “With Aiden, he just has good at-bats. He competes, he fouls pitches off, he’s aggressive but he also likes to have long at-bats at times, so he just kind of fits that role. Late in games, he’s able to drive one by or he could push it and move a runner over, and that’s valuable for me in the leadoff spot.”

The 6-foot, 175-pound outfielder boasts starts in left field, center field and right field, carrying that versatility to Medford’s defense.

“He’s a big contributor in the outfield for us,” says Olmstead. “I literally have already put him in left, center and right, and he comes through every time. He has a high IQ in the outfield, and he has a good first step, so he’s very helpful out there for us.”

There’s another intangible that makes Horsley a perfect fit for this year’s cast of characters on hand for the summer collegiate wood-bat baseball season as a Medford Rogues player.

“He’s a workhorse,” says Olmstead of the 2023 North Medford graduate. “It’s been a pleasure coaching him this summer. He works his butt off. He hustles, he competes and he wants to win.”

Such traits have been common ground up and down the Rogues roster, with Medford standing as one of the Pacific Empire League leaders at 17-7 overall and 3-1 in PEL play entering Tuesday’s two-game series opener with the Prune Packers. First pitch is 6:35 p.m. on each night.

“They’re a really fun team to be around, for sure,” says the 20-year-old Horsley. “I get along with all of them very well, and definitely the best thing is we all want to win. We’ve come back from eight runs and 10 runs down this year, so it’s definitely nice playing on a team like that where we definitely don’t back down.”

It’s a spirit that the players already possess, but definitely gets taken to another level with Olmstead’s passion for playing the game hard, and playing it the right way — with just a touch of emotion ready to light any fire when necessary.

“He might be the most fiery coach I’ve ever had,” Horsley says, with all due respect. “He wants to win. He gets locked into the game, and I love that, for sure. He wants to win more than anyone.”

There’s no better time to carry along a little bit of that confidence and enthusiasm, with most of the nonleague showcases behind the Rogues as they embark on an effort to finish among the top two teams in the PEL standings so they can play for a league championship later this summer.

“This will be the best competition we’ll face all summer,” Horsley says of the PEL slate. “They’re all very good teams with really good Division I guys, but it’s only just going to get you better, so you want to face these guys.”

After missing what would’ve been his freshman season at Lower Columbia College due to a sprained knee, Horsley used his 2024 summer with the Rogues as a means to try and test his knee and break off some of the rust that followed impressive final seasons with the Black Tornado and Mustangs.

He hit .244 in 25 games last summer — sporting 13 runs and 17 RBIs — but managed only two extra-base hits with a pair of doubles a year ago.

With a concentration on getting stronger — something Horsley says he will continue working on throughout the offseason — Horsley is already up to six doubles and one home run to fit in nicely with a Rogues crew that has been spraying hits around the ballpark.

Medford boasts a team batting average of .311 with 59 doubles highlighting 76 extra-base hits overall in a ballpark that doesn’t freely hand out home runs.

The Rogues are just shy of averaging 10 runs per outing, with Division I talents like Johnny Alley (.372, 30 runs, 19 RBIs), Ryan Severns (.354, 26 runs, 17 RBIs), Jordan Marian (team-best .419 average) and Orlando Cobarrubias (team-high 20 RBIs) blending in nicely with local talents like Isaac Hill (.397, 23 runs, 16 RBIs) and Frankie Rutigliano (.333, 16 runs, 19 RBIs).

“I think our whole starting nine has done really well so far, and really anyone in the lineup,” says Horsley.

“I just think we have a good, aggressive approach at the plate,” he adds, “and we just really hunt barrels, and they’ve just been falling for us. And once we get going, it becomes contagious. Having so many great hitters, the momentum always can be on our side for a while, and I definitely think that helps give us all confidence in any situation.”

The final game stats, however, aren’t as personally important to Horsley as just knowing he’s making strides to become a more complete ballplayer for when he returns to Lower Columbia in the fall and hopes to lay the next stepping stone toward a four-year college baseball program.

In 29 games at Lower Columbia this past spring, Horsley batted .236 with 13 runs and eight RBIs to help the Red Devils win more games than any other in program history with a 45-6 record and West Region championship in the Northwest Athletic Conference.

“I just want to keep getting better, keep getting faster and getting stronger,” Horsley says of his summer goals. “I’m trying to hit the ball well and keep being consistent at the plate, for sure, and not losing at-bats because of focus or anything like that. I’ve also been trying to learn from the DI guys and be as good of a teammate as I can be.”

“The best thing I bring to the table is my hustle and my effort, and I try to bring a good attitude as well,” he adds. “I try to give good advice to the other guys if they’re asking me for something, but mostly it’s just about making good connections with my teammates and trying to carry over what I learn here back to Lower Columbia. Obviously, what I work on here, I hope I can translate that over to the next few years because all I want to do is continue playing baseball.”

And if that happens to include more games here in Medford, then so much the better.

“I love having my friends and my family and stuff coming to our games, that definitely makes it more fun,” says Horsley. “I’ve been playing baseball my whole life and I just love it. It’s so hard, so just succeeding in a hard sport like this makes you love it so much more.”

“Just needing that basehit up the middle — knowing it’s the hardest sport to play — and then you do it,” he adds, “it just makes you super, super happy. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, anywhere else.”

Reach sports editor Kris Henry at kris.henry@rv-times.com or 458-488-2035