Akin's Error Hands LAA a Wild 7-6 Walk-Off Over Baltimore
The Angels didn't beat Baltimore on Wednesday — Baltimore handed it to them. A three-error sequence in the 10th inning, capped by an infield single from O'Hoppe, turned a 6-5 deficit into a 7-6 Angels walk-off win.
Samuel Basallo put on a show that should have been enough. The Baltimore catcher went 2-for-5 with two home runs and four RBI, doing the heavy lifting in what looked like a comfortable Orioles victory. After Soler's two-run shot to left in the first — 366 feet, Meckler scoring ahead of him — Basallo answered immediately in the second with a 434-foot blast to right center that scored Alonso and knotted it at two. Then in the third, Alonso doubled to left to score Taveras and put Baltimore ahead, and Basallo followed with his second homer of the night, a 373-foot shot to right that scored Alonso again and pushed the lead to 5-2. At that point, this looked like Basallo's night and Baltimore's game.
It wasn't. The Angels chipped away in the eighth, with Grissom singling to left to score Walton, and then Meckler delivering a single to right that scored both Grissom and Schanuel to tie it at five. Just like that, a three-run cushion was gone. The game went to extras, and Pete Alonso — who finished 3-for-4 with two RBI and two runs — gave Baltimore the lead again in the 10th with a single to right that scored Ward. One out away from a road win, Baltimore's bullpen and defense collapsed simultaneously.
The decisive moment was as ugly as it gets: Peraza scored on an error, and pitcher Akin committed two errors on the same play — Schanuel reached first on one and advanced to third on another. The win probability swung from 18% to 64% in LAA's favor on that single sequence. Then O'Hoppe dropped an infield single in front of the catcher, Schanuel scored, and the Angels had a 7-6 walk-off. The story of the night was not Basallo's two-homer performance or Alonso's three-hit game — it was a pitcher who couldn't handle a ball cleanly when it mattered most. Baltimore's offense gave their pitching staff every opportunity to close this out. They didn't take it.