Orioles overcome 7-run deficit to win crazy game against Tigers in extra innings

DETROIT — This would be impressive if it wasn’t so maddening. The way the Orioles can excel and flounder within the span of a series — within a span of minutes of the same game, even — is befuddling. It is exaltation one minute, cruel and unusual punishment for the fanbase the next.

In the end, perhaps relief was the predominant feeling for these Orioles.

They won an absolutely bonkers game at Comerica Park that lasted into the 12th inning and finished 10-9 against the Tigers.

Entering the seventh inning, Baltimore (53-56) found itself trailing by seven runs. The Orioles caught up with a five-run seventh and a two-run eighth to force extra innings. And, once there, more back-and-forth play occurred.

In the end, right-hander Andrew Kittredge forced a groundout from Eduardo Valencia to finish the game and Colton Cowser’s RBI single in the top half of the 12th marked the winning run.

“Emotions are high,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “It was one of those games where, when you’re down seven, the boys kept fighting and never wavered. Everyone contributed. It was a fun game. Glad that we won, obviously. The vibes are high right now. I’m proud of those guys.”

This win becomes the Orioles’ largest comeback since 2009, when they overcame a nine-run deficit to beat the Boston Red Sox on June 30. It’s also the first time the Orioles have won after going down 7-0 since July 2, 1995.

This whole series was wild. On Monday, a squirrel interrupted proceedings and led a chase through the outfield. On Tuesday, the Orioles suffered their worst shutout loss since 2004. And, on Wednesday, Baltimore roared back in Detroit to take a critical series win.

“Every game from here on out, whether it’s deadline three days away or the end of the season, every game is crucial for us right now in getting to where we need to go,” left-hander Trevor Rogers said.

Cowser’s at-bat in the top of the 12th inning was one of his best. He fell behind 0-2, then worked the count full with the go-ahead run on third base. Against left-hander Drew Sommers, he prodded a single into center.

Baltimore might have won it an inning earlier after Yohel Pozo plated the go-ahead run in the 11th with a sacrifice fly and Jackson Holliday — who finished 8-for-11 this series — put the Orioles ahead by two.

But the Orioles turned to right-hander Rico Garcia for the bottom half of that frame. Spencer Torkelson crushed his first pitch — a hanging slider — for a game-tying two-run homer.

Cowser’s single and the combination of left-hander Grant Wolfram and Kittredge won a wild one, however, that started out much more poorly.

“We’ve gotten into some holes and we fought back, and we haven’t always come through,” Cowser said. “I just think it was a really good job of our guys continuing to grind and have at-bats.”

The traffic against left-hander Tarik Skubal was minimal until the seventh, when the Orioles put runners on the corners with two outs. That’s when Leody Taveras singled to chase Skubal from what could be his final start with the Tigers.

Skubal, who recorded his 1,000th career strikeout when he punched out Taylor Ward to begin the game, left the mound to a standing ovation. The Tigers’ pitching staff unraveled from there.

Right-hander Kyle Finnegan allowed a two-run single from Holliday, who entered as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded, and Ward delivered a two-run single to trim Detroit’s lead to two runs.

Then in the eighth, against right-hander Drew Anderson, Coby Mayo delivered the largest blow: a two-run triple to the deepest part of center field, just shy of a homer. That blast tied a game in which Baltimore had looked down and out.

“It’s such a deep park to center field, and I wanted to get on my horse as fast as I can to try to get as many bases as possible,” Mayo said of his first career three-bagger. “Homer honestly wasn’t even on my mind when I hit that second one. I just wanted to get around the bases fast, and just glad that one fell.”

The way the Orioles played defense meant they had little business being close. They recorded three errors behind Rogers, and it could’ve been more given the bobbles and misplays not ruled errors.

At one point, Pete Alonso held his head in his hands after throwing the ball away in a rundown opportunity. Baltimore’s fans have mirrored that stance more times than not this season. This has been a debacle in the field far too frequently — which doesn’t reinforce the team’s hopes to avoid selling ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

“A lot of that was self-inflicted, those seven runs,” Albernaz said.

It’s not outlandish to still see any of the three trade deadline outcomes: buying, selling or doing both. The Orioles have three games remaining before then. The dismal American League chase for the third wild-card spot leaves room for losing clubs to consider buying, even when performances such as Wednesday’s exhibit the wide gap between the Orioles and postseason-caliber play.

The Orioles lead the majors with 69 unearned runs allowed. That is more than Baltimore has conceded in a season since 2019, when the club lost 108 games.

The first error Wednesday came in the second, when Alonso misfired a throw to Gunnar Henderson when he caught Javier Báez in a rundown between first and second. Báez had just hit an RBI single against Rogers, and when Alonso missed his throw, a second run scored. A sacrifice fly later in the frame brought home a third run.

Back-to-back errors in the sixth — one from Christian Encarnacion-Strand and the next from Henderson — helped the Tigers build a 7-0 lead.

Rogers wasn’t his crispest. He allowed eight hits. But his day was complicated by the lack of execution behind him.

“That’s probably one of the crazier games I’ve ever been a part of, and we really needed that game,” Rogers said. “I’m just happy the way we kind of turned the game around. We were playing pretty sloppy baseball, myself included, and really turned it around and played our style of baseball and beared down and we got the win. That was huge for us.”

The Orioles looked up against it in the 10th inning when they failed to score the automatic runner from second. Dylan Beavers swung at the first pitch and slammed his bat when he popped out on a middle-middle offering. Encarnacion-Strand hit a soft liner to the shortstop, and it turned into a double play because Henderson was well off second base.

That didn’t come back to bite the Orioles, however, because right-hander Tyler Wells slammed the door. He forced a ground ball out that moved the automatic runner to third in the bottom of the 10th, and then Wells induced an inning-ending double play from Valencia to extend this crazy game.

Wells’ 27.4% ground ball rate entering Wednesday was among the lowest in baseball. But the double-play ball was “huge for me,” Wells said.

“I’m not a ground ball pitcher by any means whatsoever,” Wells said. “It just felt really good to be able to come through for the team there at that point and be able to give the team a chance to win. Even though it took a couple of extra innings to get there, we came out victorious, and that’s all that matters.”

At this time of year, there’s truth to that. The Orioles added another tick in the win column. How it happened — with errors and a hole and then a massive comeback — just rose the heart rate of a group living on the fringes of postseason contention.

This article has been updated.