Saturday was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Cal Ripken’s 2131 gam, the most magical moment in Camden Yards’ history. What followed on the field was perhaps the second most magical moment. The Orioles broke up a no-hitter with two outs in the 9th and scored four two-out runs to steal a win from the reigning champions.
There was a special air around Camden Yards Saturday night, as Birdland gathered to celebrate the anniversary of Cal Ripken’s greatest achievement. Cal recreated his celebratory
lap around the Yard from three decades back. Mike Mussina, Chris Berman, Jon Miller and Cal himself made guest appearances on the broadcast. You’d expect that celebratory mood would have lifted the Orioles’ play. For 8.2 innings, it only seemed to lift the play of the Dodgers’ All-Star Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Yamamoto befuddled Orioles hitters all evening with wicked movement on all his pitches. He dive-bombed Oriole bats with his excellent splitter. Saw off some lumber with a cutter that confused lefties. His breaking balls looked like something you’d usually see in a game of wiffle ball. All of that combined to keep the Orioles out of the hit column until Jackson Holliday stepped to the plate in the 9th.
After getting ahead of Yamamoto 2-1, Holliday turned on an inside cutter, pulling it over the right-center gap and sending it ricocheting off a railing just over the right-center wall for a solo home run—cutting the LA lead to 3-1. The roar from the Camden Yards faithful paled in comparison to what they gave Cal, but not by much.
With the no-hit bid gone, and at 112 pitches, Yamamoto left the game to an ovation of his own as the Dodgers turned to former All-Star Blake Treinen. The Holliday homer and the change in pitchers ignited something in the Orioles’ offense as they kicked off a two-out rally. Jeremiah Jackson got the O’s second hit of the night, doubling off the base of the left-center wall to bring the tying run to the plate.
Treinen then hit Gunnar Henderson and walked Ryan Mountcastle to load the bases and put the winning run on first. The O’s clearly had Treinen rattled at that point, as he walked Colton Cowser on five pitches to force across a run and bring the O’s within a run.
For the second night in a row, the Dodgers turned to closer and (former Oriole) Tanner Scott. For the second night in a row, the Orioles got the best of the flame-throwing lefty. Scott tried to attack Emmanuel Rivera with a fastball at the bottom of the zone. Instead, Rivera lined the heater up the middle to score two and unleash a wave of euphoria across Birdland.
The magic came after Trevor Rogers couldn’t deliver enough magic early on. The start the Orioles got from Rogers was by no means bad, but it was certainly his worst outing in a long while. At the beginning of the evening, the reigning AL Pitcher of the Month looked like his normal sharp self. He was consistently dotting his pitches on the corners all around the zone. He erased a leadoff single from Shohei Ohtani in the 1st by punching out Mookie Betts and getting Teoscar Hernández to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Roger book-ended the 2nd inning with another pair of Ks. He started the inning by fanning Freddie Freeman on an excellent sweeper that dove right off the down and away corner. Two batters later, he struck out Andy Pages on a fastball up and away.
The Orioles’ ace finally ran into some trouble in the top of the 3rd. Miguel Rojas led off the inning with a double laced in the right field corner and Enrique Hernández walked to give the Dodgers two on and no outs. Nine hitter Ben Rortvedt then laid down a sac bunt to advance both runners, and Ohtani got LA’s first run on the board with an RBI groundout up the middle.
Allowing one run had been par for the course for Rogers of late, as the lefty had allowed exactly one run in six straight starts heading into Saturday. It was the additional run he allowed that made his start against the Dodgers a “bad” outing by his lofty standards. Rogers allowed a triple to Freeman in the 4th, but stranded him at third after a diving stop by Emmanuel Rivera on a grounder to third and a Pages fly out to left.
The O’s starter couldn’t repeat that feat in the 5th, as the Dodgers tacked on their second run of the game. Rojas again led off the inning with a double, this time lining a ball to center field out of the reach of Colton Cowser. Enrique Hernández then flipped a bloop single to right to move Rojas to third and put the pressure on Rogers. Rortvedt again laid down a sac bunt to give LA second and third with one out.
Rogers then delivered his best AB of the night, punching out Ohtani on a sharp, 0-2 slider right off the low, outside corner of the strike zone. He then nearly wriggled out of the inning unscathed, as a liner off the bat of Betts found the leather of Gunnar Henderson’s glove, only for it to pop out of the pocket and go down as a Betts RBI single.
Rogers ended the 5th without allowing any further runs and came back out for the 6th. Freeman and Alex Call led off the inning with back-to-back singles, and after punching out Pages, Rogers gave way to reliever Shawn Dubin. The right reliever would strand both runners, closing Rogers’ line at 5.1 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 1 BB and 6 K—his first non-quality start since June 18th.
The Dodgers got their third run in the 7th off of Albert Suárez. Rortvedt led off the inning with a single, and two batters later, Betts tripled into left as Beavers failed to come up with a diving catch. At that point, it looked like Betts’ insurance run had sealed an Orioles defeat. Instead, it just set the scene for one of the craziest comebacks in Orioles history.
