August 19, 2022: Orioles win offensive showcase against Red Sox during SABR 50

The Baltimore Orioles were baseball’s surprise team of 2022. They were coming off a 2021 campaign in which they finished 52-110 – the third time in four years they lost two-thirds or more of their games1 – and little was expected of Baltimore, especially in a strong American League East Division. Fangraphs.com, a baseball analysis site, expected the Orioles to finish with 62.9 wins and in last place in the AL East. The other four teams in the division were projected to make the postseason.2

Despite the preseason pessimism, Orioles fans had much to be excited about. After a July in which the team won 10 games in a row, and a 16-7 record heading into the All-Star break, Baltimore had a 61-57 record entering this mid-August game. Strong pitching, talented youth, and leadership from manager Brandon Hyde had the team in the midst of the playoff hunt.3

Meanwhile, the Red Sox – American League runners-up in 2021, two wins away from the World Series – limped into the game with a 59-60 record, coming off an 8-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Large margins of defeat were quite common for Boston in 2022; on July 22 the team lost 28-5 to the Toronto Blue Jays. From July 16 to 24, the Red Sox lost five games in a row by a combined score of 67-13, the worst five-game stretch by run differential for any major-league team in 70 years.4

Despite the record differential, the Red Sox still had better playoff odds entering this game, thanks to an easier late-season schedule. Fangraphs.com ascribed a 7.3 percent chance to Boston, compared with 4.0 percent for the Orioles.5 Even after both teams controversially sold key pieces at the trade deadline – Trey Mancini for Baltimore, Christian Vazquez for Boston – the postseason was in sight.6 If either team was to make a playoff push, this series – and this game – would be extremely important.

Right-hander Jordan Lyles (9-9, 4.48 ERA) got the start for Baltimore and allowed no runs in the top of the first, despite a leadoff double by Tommy Pham, who came to Boston in an August 1 deal with the Cincinnati Reds. Rookie Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford (3-4, 4.18), making his 11th major-league start, allowed a leadoff double to Cedric Mullins but no runs.

Christian Arroyo’s single led off the second for Boston. A fly out, Rob Refsnyder’s double, and another fly out brought Enrique Hernández to the plate with two on and two out. He doubled to left, scoring both runners for a 2-0 Red Sox lead.

In the bottom of the second, Austin Hays bunted for a single with one out. One out later, Ramon Urias singled. Jorge Mateo then brought them home with a home run to deep left field, his 12th of the season. The Orioles led 3-2 after two innings.

Alex Verdugo and Xander Bogaerts began Boston’s third with singles. After Rafael Devers’ fly out moved Verdugo to third, Arroyo’s groundout tied the game at 3-3. Eric Hosmer – formerly of the San Diego Padres and, like Pham, a trade deadline arrival for Boston7 – then singled Bogaerts to second, bringing Refsnyder to the plate. Refsnyder’s second double of the game scored Bogaerts, giving Boston a 4-3 lead.

The Orioles immediately responded. Catcher Adley Rutschman, putting up an outstanding rookie season three years after Baltimore selected him first overall in the June 2019 draft, began the bottom of the third with a single. Anthony Santander followed with a two-run home run to left field. His team-leading 21st blast gave the Orioles a 5-4 lead.

After a groundout, Kyle Stowers singled to center and Hays doubled to left. Rougned Odor flied to center. Stowers scored, but Hays was thrown out at third. Baltimore was ahead 6-4 after three innings.

Hernandez led off the Red Sox fourth with an infield single, but Boston went scoreless. Perhaps the most impactful play came at the end of the half-inning, when shortstop Xander Bogaerts and manager Alex Cora were thrown out for arguing a strike-three call. Boston would have to try to mount a comeback without its manager and one of its best players.

While the Red Sox provided fireworks with their words, the Orioles continued with fireworks from their bats. With two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Mullins doubled and Rutschman hit the Orioles’ third home run of the game –his eighth since his May 21 major-league debut – extending the lead to 8-4. A single by Santander ended Crawford’s day on the mound.

Hirokazu Sawamura came into the game for the Red Sox. Ryan Mountcastle greeted him with another home run, to left field, giving Baltimore a 10-4 lead. Despite allowing a single and walk after the blast, the Red Sox escaped without any more damage.

Keegan Akin replaced Lyles on the mound for the Orioles in the fifth, and the Red Sox began to rally. Devers, leading off, reached when second baseman Odor threw wild to first on his grounder. Singles by Arroyo and Hosmer followed, the latter scoring Devers.

After Refsnyder struck out, catcher Reese McGuire reached on a catcher’s interference call, loading the bases. Another strikeout brought Pham to the plate; he cleared the bases with a double to left field. Verdugo followed with a single; suddenly the Red Sox had a five-run inning and trailed by only one run, 10-9.

Jarren Duran, who entered the game when Bogaerts was ejected,8 walked to continue the inning. This ended Akin’s day, with Nick Vespi replacing him. Vespi induced a fly out from Devers to end the half-inning.

Ryan Brasier replaced Sawamura in the bottom of the fifth. Like his predecessor, his first batter took him deep. Ramón Urias’s homer to center field – the Orioles’ fifth round-tripper of the night – made the score 11-9. One out later, Mullins walked, Rutschman doubled, and Santander followed with a ground-rule double to center, scoring both to give the Orioles a 13-9 lead.

Mountcastle added to the scoring with a single to center, scoring Santander. After a fly out, Austin Hays doubled Mountcastle home. Baltimore had answered Boston’s five-run top of the fifth with five runs of its own, pushing the lead to 15-9. Jeurys Familia relieved Brasier on the mound, one of six defensive changes the Red Sox made after Hays’s double. Odor struck out to end the fifth.

Arroyo led off the sixth with a single to right, but Hosmer hit into a 1-6-3 double play. The Red Sox did pick up a run when Refsnyder hit his third double of the game, and McGuire singled him home. This ended Vespi’s night; Dillon Tate took the mound for Baltimore. McGuire was caught trying to steal second, and the top of the sixth ended with a 15-10 Orioles lead.

The teams had combined for 25 runs on 34 hits in just 5½ innings. At this point, both bullpens restored order, and there was no further scoring in the game.

Baltimore could muster only a walk in the bottom of the sixth. A two-out single by Verdugo in the seventh led to another Orioles reliever, Cionel Pérez; he finished the inning.

Matt Barnes took the mound for Boston in the Baltimore seventh and recorded the game’s only one-two-three inning. In the Boston eighth, Refsnyder reached base for the fourth time with a walk, but the Red Sox could not score.

Matt Strahm pitched the bottom of the eighth, the only batter reaching on a hit-by-pitch. Felix Bautista closed the game for the Orioles. He allowed a one-out single to Bobby Dalbec, but fly outs by Verdugo and Duran ended the game.

As the pitcher of record when the Orioles scored the five runs in the bottom of the fifth, Vespi earned his fifth win in relief, despite allowing hits to three of the five batters he faced. Crawford allowed nine earned runs in 3⅔ innings, taking the loss for the Red Sox.

Boston was never able to recover, finishing at 78-84 at the bottom of the AL East Division. Baltimore’s solid season continued; the Orioles’ 83-68 record – more than 20 wins better than Fangraphs’ preseason projection – was a 31-game improvement over 2021 and their first winning season since 2016. They came in fourth in the AL East, missing the playoffs by three games to the division rival Tampa Bay Rays.

Author’s Note

Over 500 SABR members, including the author, attended this game as part of the SABR 50 convention in Baltimore. As it happens, this game’s 25 runs set a record for total runs scored in a game attended by SABR convention attendees as a group; the previous record was 21 runs, scored during an 11-10 Oakland Athletics win over the Texas Rangers on June 18, 1994.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for information on the history of the Baltimore Orioles along with other pertinent material and the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL202208190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2022/B08190BAL2022.htm

Notes

1 The only exception was the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, when the Orioles finished 25-35.

2 “MLB Playoff Odds: 4-6-2022,” Fangraphs.com, accessed October 19, 2022, https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds?date=2022-04-06&dateDelta.

3 Alec Branch. “Baltimore Orioles Have Fans Excited for MLB’s Second Half, and Here Are Four Reasons Why,” Delmarva Now, July 25, 2022, https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/sports/local/2022/07/25/baltimore-orioles-fans-excited-mlb-all-star-break-second-half.

4 Secret Base, “Dorktown: Boston Red Sox!” Twitter.com, July 24, 2022, https://twitter.com/secretbase/status/1551315892700516352?lang=en. The three worst five-game stretches by run differential in the last 70 years were all set by the Red Sox during a 10-day span in July: July 16-24 at -54, July 15-23 at -49, and July 14-22 at -47.

5 “MLB Playoff Odds,” Fangraphs.com, August 19, 2022, https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds?date=2022-08-19.

6 Jim Bowden. “MLB Trade Deadline Grades for All 30 Teams, from Padres (A+) to Mets (C) to White Sox (F),” The Athletic, August 3, 2022, https://theathletic.com/3471426/2022/08/03/mlb-trade-deadline-grades (subscription required).

7 Hosmer was supposed to be part of the trade that sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Washington Nationals to the San Diego Padres on August 2, but he exercised his no-trade clause. The Padres then traded him to the Red Sox.

8 Enrique Hernández moved from center field to shortstop to replace Bogaerts. Duran was the new center fielder.