Baltimore Steals Houston's Lead in the 11th, Wins 4-2
The Orioles needed extra innings to get there, but two runs in the 11th off a beaten-up Houston bullpen sealed a 4-2 Baltimore win on Saturday. The story of the night was a two-out infield single that flipped Houston's win probability from 70% to 38% in a single swing.
Trevor Rogers gave Baltimore exactly what it needed to stay in the game. He went 6.1 innings, allowing 7 hits and just 1 earned run while striking out 8 — the kind of outing that keeps a bullpen fresh for a late push. Houston countered with Spencer Arrighetti, who was arguably sharper on paper — 1 hit and 6 strikeouts over 5 innings — but 4 walks kept him on a short leash, and the Astros burned through AJ Blubaugh and Josh Hader trying to protect a tie game deep into the night.
The scoring was a back-and-forth grind. Dylan Beavers got Baltimore on the board first with a double to right in the fourth that scored Alonso, making it 1-0. Houston answered in the seventh when a Nick Allen sacrifice bunt scored Dezenzo to tie it. The game stayed knotted until the 10th, when Baltimore scratched ahead again — a Jackson sacrifice bunt scoring Taveras — only for Yordan Alvarez to immediately erase it with a ground rule double that plated Spence and leveled things at 2-2. That sequence, two lead changes in the same half-inning, looks like the moment Houston thought it had wrestled control back.
It hadn't. In the 11th, Tyler O'Neill reached on an infield single to second, Henderson scored, and just like that Houston's win probability cratered from 70% to 38% — a 32-point swing on a ball that barely left the infield. Leody Taveras followed with a single to right, Ward scored, and Baltimore had a two-run cushion it would not relinquish. Taveras finished 1-for-1 with an RBI and a run scored; O'Neill went 1-for-2 with the RBI that broke the game open. Beavers, who started the scoring in the fourth, ended the night 2-for-3. Josh Hader threw a perfect ninth for Houston — 3 strikeouts, no hits — but it didn't matter. Baltimore took the late innings, and the final.