A Basallo Bomba de Salida
Down to the last strike of the ninth inning in a tie game on Friday night, uber-prospect Samuel Basallo sent the fifth pitch he saw from Dodgers reliever and former Oriole Tanner Scott, a 98.7mph 4-seam fastball, 433 ft. to right-canterfield for a walk-off 2-1 win over the defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers (78-63).
The win, the fourth in a row for the Orioles and their fourth in a row over the top two contenders in the NL West, sent the crowd of 25,481 fans and the team into a frenzy.
Basallo’s homerun awarded the win to Yennier Cano (3-6) who struck out one in the top of the ninth inning.
A wild way to score
Baltimore scored their first run in the fifth inning when Jackson Holliday drew a one-out walk and advanced to second on a Gunnar Henderson two-out walk. Holliday, who was running on the pitch, crossed the plate when a wild pitch by Los Angeles reliever Ben Casparius went to the backstop. Holliday slid head-first and touched the plate just ahead of the Casparius tag.
Between Holliday’s run and Basallo’s homerun twelve of thirteen Baltimore batters were retired. The most egregious out was recorded in the seventh inning when Jorge Mateo pinch ran for Coby Mayo, who had singled, and was picked off first on the very next pitch.
The injury hits keep coming
Starter Dean Kremer left the game after throwing 56 pitches in 3.0 innings with right forearm discomfort. On what would be Kremer’s next to last pitch, the right-hander winced in discomfort after throwing a 95.4 mph sinker that Mookie Betts fouled off. He walked 1 and struck out 4 over that span.
After the game, Interim Manager Tony Mansolino addressed the injury, “I just saw him in the hallway, he thinks it’s mild. So we’ll get imaging tomorrow, we’ll have more answers tomorrow to what it is, but the level of concern at the moment after the evaluation with the medical team was pretty low.”
With the team’s injury epedemic of 2025, not much stock can be palced in that assessment. Regardless of the outcome, many will certainly point to Kremer’s 114 pitch game on August 12th as the precursor to this issue. That start was the third consecutive of 100+ pitches for Kremer.
The Dodgers lone run came on a Freddie Freeman homerun in the sixth inning off of reliever Dietrich Enns.
2025 Record: 65-76
Next Game: Sat. 9/6 @ 7:05 pm vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (30th Anniversary of 2131)