The Orioles spent most of Tuesday night looking like a team trying to survive another bad turn in a season that has already taken plenty of them. Then the game veered into pure chaos, and Baltimore walked out with a 7-5 win over the Mets in 11 innings.
The biggest scare came in the fifth inning, when Shane Baz had to leave after a screaming line drive hit him on the elbow. X-rays were negative, but the moment was ugly enough that the Orioles had him test a warmup pitch before pulling him, and that one sailed high to the backstop at maybe 70 mph. Baz was clearly in distress, and Craig Albernaz said he was sore.
Baz’s night was rough even before the comebacker. He allowed seven hits, issued two walks and struck out only two while giving up runs on a sac fly in the first, Juan Soto’s single in the second and rookie Carson Benge’s homer in the third. The Orioles also had Kyle Bradish shut down for the season recently, while Brandon Young is “running on fumes and lacking command deeper in a season than he’s ever gone before,” leaving Baltimore short on answers in the rotation.
Still, the bullpen held the line. Josh Walker extended his run to 18 straight outings without being scored on, and rookie Luis De Leon gave Baltimore solid innings to keep the game within reach.
That set up a bizarre finish.
With one out in the ninth, Pete Alonso drilled career homer No. 300 off Kodai Senga, becoming the 10th fastest player to reach the mark. Mets fans greeted it with a curtain call while the game was still being played, and then chanted Alonso’s name because he is the Mets all-time HR leader.
They also chanted for their GM to be fired. Alonso, though, sounded more interested in the result than the milestone.
“I’m more stoked that we won the game,” Alonso said of his homer on the MASN broadcast after the game. “We’re in a tight Wild Card race here with not a lot of games to go. There’s a lot of tight margins, and getting that game back … We’re playing for October right now.”
Albernaz had his own dry reaction to the curtain call: “Haven’t really seen a curtain call for a guy wearing grey pants.”
And then the game got stranger.
In the 11th, Coby Mayo turned on an 0-2 pitch with two outs and sent it to dead center. The ball kicked off the wall and centerfielder AJ Ewing fell back awkwardly, allowing Mayo to race home for an inside-the-park, three-run homer. Mayo finished with 24 home runs, 63 RBIs and a .759 OPS, all of which rank second on the team behind Alonso.
Baltimore struck out 17 times and walked only once, which would normally be a bad recipe for a win. On Tuesday, it was just part of the mess.
The Orioles managed only enough against Sean Manaea to stay around until the late fireworks, and the club’s standing remains shaky. Baltimore is 74-78 and three games off the pace for the final playoff spot in the American League with 10 games left.
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