The Orioles season has been a rollercoaster of emotions on the field, from the opening loss of the opening day against the Red Sox, to the series sweep over the Nationals held by a dysfunctional tarp.
Tuesday in Philadelphia, the Orioles play their craziest game of the season. At least, as it relates to in-game activities.
The Orioles kicked early, rolled to ban it and later took the lead, blew the lead, took the lead again, let the Phillies tie it, and then won the game from an in-park home court of Austin Hays in the top of the 10th inning.
Somehow, the Orioles earned a 10-9 victory over the Phillies in extra innings in a game that put the Orioles over .500 on the season.
This game has it all. Bloop runs, house-inside-the-park runs, a GHOST pic.twitter.com/D67yIhfNzq
– Orioles on MASN (@masnOrioles) August 12, 2020
“It felt like a boxing match, honestly, from the eighth inning on,” said manager Brandon Hyde. ‘Feeling we have’ Run out of gas’ emotionally, who’s going to get that last one? That was the feeling. Travis Lakins came in to finish the match. This has been a very unusual year, it’s been an unusual season so far – we’ve seen some things we haven’t seen in a while. Most likely it will not be the last time. ”
Hyde was right when he said that things happened that they, honestly, would not see again for a long time.
Hays’ in-park home run gave the Orioles a 10-8 lead in the top of the 10th inning, the first in-park home run since Sept. 2011, when Robert Andino took the performance.
With a runner on second base to start extra innings as part of the league’s new extra innings rule, Hays hit a sharp line drive to center field. There, Phillies midfielder Roman Quinn made an aggressive play on the ball and tried to make a dive to prevent Andrew Velazquez, on second base, from scoring.
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Quinn’s dive attempt missed as the ball went all the way to the wall.
“I actually did not think he had any chance at all of catching it when I first hit it,” Hays said. ‘I thought it would just be a one-hop line drive to him. And I saw him start to lie down and I thought he would catch it. It was actually really close … I saw the ball go through him and it went to the races after that. I just sniff a parking lot all the way. ”
Inside the clubhouse, Orioles starting pitcher Alex Cobb reacted just as a fan would.
“When that pop-up fell, I hit boxes,” Cobb said. ‘We all cried. We had a good group of guys in there, players who were out of the game, and we turned into fanboys. It was great. Root hard for your boys. It’s a lot of fun to see Lakins finish it off and go to everyone after five. ‘
Cobb threw well in 5 ⅓ innings with only three hits and two deserved runs allowed, but left the game inline for the loss to 71 fields. The official from Orioles happened to him in the sixth inning with three runs to ban the game. From then on, it looked like the Orioles had things in order, as a Hanser Alberto double and Anthony Santander single gave the Orioles a 5-3 lead that entered the bottom of the eighth inning.
But home runs by Bryce Harper and Jean Segura gave the Phillies a 6-5 lead in the ninth.
The Orioles tied the game on a single by Renato Nunez, and the inning turned out to be when Pedro Severino hit an infield in the dark night of Philadelphia.
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The Phillies impacted it, however, as a hit ball with an expected batting average of .000 fell according to statcast to give the Orioles an 8-6 lead.
this is what we are talking about. xBA fan …. zero. https://t.co/aPMgYFSsgb pic.twitter.com/oIdQEMW3eL
– Andrew Gillis (@ Andrew_Gillis70) August 12, 2020
“Probably the most up and down game I’ve been a part of,” Cobb said.
The Phillies tied the game in the ninth inning, which only seems fair, since Hays’ inside-the-park home ran an inning, the Orioles later relegated to a one-run win in what was, though, a game that not likely to be replicated for a very long time.
But if there was a year for even crazier things to happen, it’s 2020.
“I think that game had a bit of everything,” Hyde said. ‘I just told Cobb that this was a great job. It feels like it was five hours ago when he got up again. I just felt like it was a dance performance by our club. I thought it was just a gravel mentality. I thought we had great at-bats … Just a great team win. Just a persistent, gutsige, wins team win. ”
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