You guys. YOU GUYS. Orioles Magic is very much still alive. And it. Is. Glorious.
The O’s pulled off their most incredible comeback of the year — maybe their most incredible in many years — by storming back from a four-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth for a chaotic 6-5 win over the Blue Jays. Noted Oriole antagonist Jeff Hoffman melted down for the Jays as the Birds sent nine batters to the plate in their thrilling final frame, capped off by Pete Alonso’s walkoff single.
This, my friends, was
the definition of a miraculous win. The Orioles entered the bottom of the ninth as a team seemingly destined to a third straight loss, one that was shaping up to be one of their most excruciating of the year. They were dead and buried. No hopes of survival — until the impossible happened.
I tell you, folks. These 2026 Orioles are not for the faint of heart. The last game I recapped was the Orioles’ unbelievable 13-inning win over the Rays on Memorial Day, which I classified as “without question the gutsiest victory of the year.” But now I think we have a new holder of that title.
Let’s jump right in to the epic comeback. To set the stage, the Orioles were trailing, 5-1, after eight innings of total failure with runners in scoring position. The Blue Jays’ lead was big enough that it wasn’t even a save situation, so Toronto manager John Schneider brought in Jeff Hoffman, the team’s former closer who lost the job earlier this year. It was a stress-free, low-leverage situation for the struggling Hoffman to get three easy outs, right?
HAHAHA. Oh, Jeff. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.
He started the inning without issue, striking out Samuel Basallo, on which the O’s DH tweaked a pec muscle on his last swing. He returned to the dugout in pain, but said after the game that he thinks he avoided serious injury.
At that point, Hoffman’s outing went delightfully haywire. He drilled Coby Mayo on a fastball, giving the Orioles their first baserunner since the sixth inning. Leody Taveras followed with a triple into the right-field corner, plating Mayo to make it a 5-2 game. Things were starting to happen, but still the O’s would need to get three more runs before Hoffman retired two more batters. The odds were overwhelmingly stacked against them.
Not for long. Jackson Holliday ripped an RBI single to right, and suddenly it was a 5-3 game with the possible tying run coming to the plate. Hoffman, instead of buckling down, simply buckled. He hung a slider that Colton Cowser ripped into the right-field corner, putting the possible tying run at second. Wait…is this going to happen?
Hoffman’s meltdown continued as he became utterly unable to throw strikes. He walked Taylor Ward on four pitches. Gunnar Henderson stepped up with the bases loaded, and impressively, he stayed within himself and didn’t swing out of his heels trying to be a hero. Henderson patiently worked a five-pitch walk, forcing home Holliday to make it a 5-4 game.
Schneider had finally seen enough of Hoffman, about four batters too late, giving a Hail Mary call to the bullpen for journeyman Connor Seabold. The right-hander, who probably didn’t expect he’d have to be used in this game, seemed woefully unprepared. He, too, had trouble finding the strike zone, and Adley Rutschman gritted out an outstanding at-bat, taking a 3-2 pitch just off the outside for ball four.
WE. ARE. TIED. Cowser trotted home from third as the Camden Yards crowd of 32,645 went nuts. As the Orioles erupted in their dugout, the energy was drained out a shell-shocked Blue Jays team. The only thing left was for the Birds to go ahead and win it.
Pete Alonso delivered. After taking two balls and a strike, he jumped on a fastball and bounced it through the wide open hole on the right side. BASE HIT!! ORIOLES WIN!! I CAN’T STOP CAPITALIZING EVERYTHING!! The ecstatic O’s poured out of the dugout and ripped Alonso’s shirt off, possibly as some kind of ode to the Tarps Off movement but probably because they were just so excited they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
My goodness. The fans who didn’t leave early got to see one heck of an ending. Which is good, because the eight and a half innings of baseball they saw before that were hardly worth the price of admission.
I would have had a lot more to say about this if the Orioles had lost, but there was a truly tragicomic amount of failure from the O’s offense for most of the game. The Birds squandered one opportunity after another in the most painful ways possible, looking nothing like the offense that eventually exploded in the ninth.
Blue Jays starter Trey Yesavage issued seven walks — seven! — yet somehow gave up only one run, which almost seems mathematically impossible. But every time the Orioles had a rally going, they did the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. Yesavage walked three batters in the third inning alone, and Gunnar Henderson’s RBI single provided the O’s an early 1-0 lead. Unfortunately, with the bases loaded and one out, Alonso hacked wildly at the first pitch — again, after Yesavage walked three of the previous five batters — and grounded into an inning-ending double play. At that point, my frustration with the Polar Bear’s recent play was at an all-time high. I’d say he redeemed himself later.
A nearly identical situation played out in the fourth. Again, the O’s loaded the bases with one out against a wild Yesavage. And you’ll never believe what happened! (That was sarcasm. You will easily believe what happened.) Jeremiah Jackson tapped a grounder to third. Kazuma Okamoto fielded, stepped on the bag, and fired to first. Yup. It’s another inning-ending double play, Jackson’s 10th of the year, tying for the dubious MLB lead. Yesavage ended up gutting out five innings and left the game in line for the win. In a game in which, again, he had seven walks.
The GIDPs didn’t stop when Yesavage left the game. In the sixth, the O’s greeted reliever Yariel Rodríguez with a walk and a single to start the inning, and again they came up empty. Coby Mayo hit the ball hard but directly to shortstop Andrés Giménez, who promptly turned the 6-4-3 twin killing. Goodness. A weak Taveras strikeout ended another utterly deflating inning. At that point the Orioles were 1-for-7 in the game with runners in scoring position, and 1-for-17 in the series. I started to think they’d never get another hit in a clutch spot. Boy, was I glad to be wrong about that.
Meanwhile, Brandon Young delivered a whale of an effort — a season-high 6.2 innings and just two runs — but a porous O’s defense betrayed him in the fourth. With two outs and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first, Jesús Sánchez lofted a fly ball to deep center. Taveras got a bad break, then got himself turned around as he raced backward, and the ball deflected off his glove as he attempted to make a lunging grab at the warning track. Guerrero raced around the bases to score the tying run. It was scored as a double, but a better center fielder would’ve made the catch with ease.
Taveras wasn’t done with the ugly defense. The next batter, Ernie Clement looped a single into center as Sánchez rounded third. Taveras might’ve had a play at the plate if he had fielded it cleanly. Instead, he dropped the ball on the transfer, allowing Sánchez to score without a throw. It’s been said before, but this O’s outfield defense is a real problem. The Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead.
It wasn’t just the Orioles’ offense and defense that struggled. So too did the bullpen. Anthony Nunez continued his recent swoon by giving up two runs in the eighth, with no help from an again-ineffective Keegan Akin, who let both inherited runners score. Albert Suárez, back with the Birds, gave up a run in the ninth to make it 5-1. And that’s how we got to that aforementioned bottom of the ninth with the Orioles in a deep hole. Without that remarkable comeback, there would’ve been a lot of blame to go around. I don’t know about you, though, but I’m suddenly feeling a lot more generous.
What a comeback. What a victory. These 2026 Orioles, man. Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in.
