Trumbo swings into action in 12th
For seven innings Friday night, it looked like the Orioles had already packed up their bats for the winter.
They had floundered for six innings against one of the most ineffective starters in the National League and appeared dead in the water against one of the losingest teams in baseball. It had reached the point that the announced crowd of 37,815 was just happy to be going home with those cool Hyun Soo Kim Korean-language Tshirts.
Then something almost miraculous happened. The Orioles rediscovered their power stroke just in the nick of time. Mark Trumbo homered to lead off the 12th inning as the Orioles came back to score a dramatic 3-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Camden Yards.
Pedro Alvarez finally got them off the deck with a long home run off reliever Enrique Burgos with two outs in the eighth inning, and Matt Wieters led off the ninth with a flag-court shot off Daniel Hudson to tie the game. The Orioles (83-71) came close to winning it in the ninth when Adam Jones delivered a one-out single with J.J. Hardy on second base. But Hardy was thrown out at the plate on a play that manager Buck Showalter challenged in case catcher Welington Castillo had illegally blocked home plate.
The Orioles loaded the bases in the 11th but failed to score before Trumbo crushed his major leagueleading 44th homer to left field to finish off the Diamondbacks.
For the first seven innings, it was the same old story. The Orioles could not get any offensive traction, even onanight whentheDiamondbacks sent a pitcher to the mound with a 2-12 record and a 6.90 ERA. Shelby Miller had not delivered a scoreless outing of any length this season, but he held the Orioles to three harmless hits over six shutout innings Friday. You figure it out.
Orioles starter Yovani Gallardo wasn’t overpowering, but you can bet that Showalter would have signed up in blood to get the performance he delivered. Gallardo allowed single runs in the first and second innings, then shut down the Diamondbacks until it was time to line up the short-relief crew.
Darren O’Day, Brad Brach, Mychal Givens, Zach Britton, Tommy Hunter and Oliver Drake (Navy) pitched scoreless innings to buy some time and the offense finally came to the rescue. Opportunities lost: The Orioles loaded the bases with two outs in the first inning against Miller with a couple of walks and a single by Manny Machado, but Alvarez was caught looking. The inning also featured a towering fly ball by Chris Davis that might have been a home run if right fielder Yasmany Tomas had not had plenty of time to settle under it and reach upbefore it seemed destined to land on the roof of the grounds crew shed.
The Orioles also had runners at second and third with one out in the sixth inning before Alvarez and Jonathan Schoop popped out to end the inning.