Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
In a game the O’s were on the brink of losing multiple times, Gunnar’s hot bat propelled the Birds to a hard-fought victory.
My goodness, folks. To quote
SNL’s Stefon: this game had
everything.
The Orioles outlasted the Rangers on a thoroughly ridiculous night of baseball, 10-6, in a game that featured pitchers hitting for both teams, the tying run scoring from first on a stolen base, a game-winning hit from a guy with only one career RBI, and not one but two multi-run extra-base hits from Gunnar Henderson in extra innings. It’s a game that the O’s were on the brink of losing on numerous occasions but — in a refreshing change of pace for this 2025 club — pulled out some late-inning magic to secure one of their most improbable victories of the year.
Whew. There’s a lot of craziness to cover. But this game was relatively normal for the first six innings, which featured a rematch of last week’s pitching matchup between southpaws Trevor Rogers and Patrick Corbin. As before, it was Rogers who won the battle, though not as emphatically as he did in Baltimore.
The O’s struck first against Corbin with a three-run third inning. Two singles and a walk loaded the bases for Gary Sánchez, who wasted no time in golfing a first-pitch slider into the left-field corner for a bases-clearing double. That Gary Sánchez is so hot right now. On one swing, the Orioles led, 3-0.
At that point, the Orioles had already worked Corbin for 53 pitches, threatening to knock him out early and force an exhausted Rangers bullpen — which just pitched in three straight extra-inning games — into early work. But Corbin, to his credit, settled down and went six. The veteran lefty escaped a two-on, no-out jam to finish the third inning, then followed with three scoreless frames, finishing with 110 pitches. Gutsy effort by him.
Meanwhile, Rogers stymied the Rangers for the first five innings tonight, continuing his 13-inning scoreless streak against Texas. He stranded two runners on base in the first with a pair of strikeouts, and worked past a baserunner each in the second and third. By the middle of the game, Rogers was on cruise control. He needed only 10 pitches to get through a perfect fourth, then 11 in a 1-2-3 fifth.
But he made his first mistake in the sixth. Two mistakes, actually. The first was issuing a leadoff walk to Corey Seager with a three-run lead. And the next was hanging a fastball to Marcus Semien that was crushed for a no-doubt dinger, shaving the O’s lead to just one. Rogers did manage to retire García before Tony Mansolino brought an end to his night after 5.1 innings. Another solid performance from Rogers, if not as dominant as his previous one.
By that point, there were few signs of the chaos that was about to transpire. Well, maybe one. Orioles catcher Chadwick Tromp injured himself on a swing in the top of the second and was noticeably wincing in pain as he came out to catch the next inning. He gave it the ol’ college try but had to leave after that inning with lower back tightness. Gary Sánchez, who was already in the game as the designated hitter, had to move to catcher, forcing the Orioles to lose the DH.
As a result, Rogers had to take two at-bats, becoming the first pitcher to bat for the Orioles since Keegan Akin in 2021, the last year before MLB installed the universal DH. Rogers, who once played in the pre-DH National League, had some previous hitting experience (3-for-43). His two at-bats in this game were predictably lackluster, both strikeouts.
The insanity ramped up in the bottom of the seventh when the Orioles let the tying run score on an absolutely catastrophic defensive play. Seranthony Domínguez set up the disaster with a two-out walk of the #9 hitter, Michael Helman, who was starting just his second major league game. Stop walking #9 hitters, Orioles!
With Sam Haggerty at the plate, Helman took off for second base. Sánchez’s off-line throw deflected off the sliding runner and skipped into shallow left-center as Helman steamed for third. Rangers third base coach Tony Beasley, seeing Cedric Mullins’ off-balance throw back to the infield, aggressively waved Helman to the plate. Jackson Holliday’s relay home was in plenty of time but one-hopped Sánchez, who couldn’t hang on to the ball. Helman slid in with the tying run on a play that he began at first base. That’s just embarrassing defense by the Orioles, particularly Sánchez, who started the mess with an errant throw and finished it by dropping the ball. One wonders how that play would have turned out differently if Tromp had still been behind the plate.
In a battle of the bullpens, the Rangers breezed through the next three innings. In the seventh, old friend Jacob Webb struck out the side to strand a Laureano double. Next, Chris Martin rebounded from his disastrous three-homers-in-three-batters outing in Baltimore last week, coldplaying the Orioles’ bats in a scoreless eighth. And closer Robert Garcia mowed down the Birds in a perfect ninth.
The Orioles’ bullpen, meanwhile, induced a heart attack at every turn. In both the eighth and ninth innings, the Rangers got the go-ahead/winning run to third base with just one out, putting them a sac fly away from victory. But the Birds, somehow, escaped both times. In the eighth, Texas had ‘em on the corners against Bryan Baker before he blew away both Jonah Heim and Josh Smith with clutch strikeouts, unleashing his signature scream and fist pump as he left the mound.
Félix Bautista worked the bottom of the ninth in a tie game and got himself into a jam with a one-out walk of catcher Kyle Higashioka, who was replaced by pinch-runner Ezequiel Duran. Just two pitches later, Duran had stolen both second and third, and only a nice block at third base by Ramón Urías saved Sánchez from a game-ending throwing error. Again, the Rangers were 90 feet away from a walkoff. But Félix did his thing, zipping high heat past pinch-hitter Alejandro Osuna and retiring Haggerty on a grounder.
And so we’re off to extra innings, for the fourth straight game in the Rangers’ case. Texas manager Bruce Bochy kept in the southpaw Garcia to face the lefty-swinging Gunnar Henderson to start the 10th. That, uh, worked out poorly for him. Henderson delivered his biggest swing of the season, demolishing a mammoth two-run homer into the right-field seats to plate himself and the free runner.
There we go! Gunnar’s power had been missing lately — he’d hit only one homer since June 5, and it came off a position player — but he picked an excellent time for his 10th of the season. For good measure, Colton Cowser walloped another blast later in the inning off former Oriole Shawn Armstrong, a 425-footer on a 3-0 pitch that extended the Birds’ lead to three. Surely they had this game in the bag, right?
No, of course they didn’t. Because like I said, this game was bonkers. Mansolino turned to Keegan Akin for the save in the 10th and he blew it almost immediately. A Semien one-out infield single brought up Adolis García as the tying run. At that point in the game, O’s pitchers had thrown García nothing but four-seam fastballs. Literally nothing. The first 14 pitches they’d thrown were four-seamers, and he’d failed to get a ball out of the infield.
Akin stuck with that game plan, starting the at-bat with five fastballs to run the count full. On his sixth pitch, he threw another fastball...except it was right down the middle, and García obliterated it. Yup. Three-run homer. In an instant, the game was tied again. The Orioles simply refuse to make anything easy.
Akin at least managed to finish the 10th, and it was on to the 11th. This time, the Orioles built an insurmountable advantage. Of all people, it was backup infielder Luis Vázquez — the Orioles’ last remaining bench player, pinch-hitting for the pitcher — who came through with the big hit, roping a sharp single to center to plate the free runner. OK! We see you, Luis Vázquez! It was only his second career RBI.
After Holliday walked, Laureano continued his outstanding night, roping an RBI two-bagger for his fourth hit (and third double) of the game. That brought up Henderson again, and he padded his extra-inning RBI total to four by lashing a gapper that plated Holliday and Laureano. It was 10-6, and finally the Orioles had a lead that even they couldn’t blow. ...Right?
Yes. Right. Andrew Kittredge restored order in the 11th by retiring all three batters he faced, one of whom was pitcher Jack Leiter, whom the Rangers were forced to use because they ran out of bench players after Heim moved from DH to catcher. It’s been a long time since two American League teams both had a pitcher bat in the same game, and it might be a long time before we ever see it again.
In any case, an Osuna flyout wrapped up a game that was three hours and 34 minutes of pure lunacy. Great win, Orioles. But next time can we make it a little less stressful?
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