BALTIMORE -- Pete Alonso couldn’t believe it. After he skipped down the first-base line, tossed his bat aside and pointed his right index finger to the sky, the 31-year-old slugger came to an abrupt stop and nearly threw his helmet to the ground, before visibly mouthing, “No!” He then stood, waited and again pointed -- this time to his right -- mouthing, “That’s a fair ball.”
Nobody in the Orioles’ dugout believed it, either. Arms flailed in the air, heads were shaking.
It sure looked like Alonso had just electrified the fans in Baltimore with his biggest moment yet as an Oriole on Wednesday night. In a tie game in the bottom of the seventh inning vs. the American League East rival Yankees, the Polar Bear jolted a high, towering fly ball down the left-field line. It appeared to be fair -- until third-base umpire Will Little signaled foul.
The call went to a replay review. And so, there was renewed hope. Alonso and his teammates waited with bated breath. It felt like it had to be overturned, and everybody in the first-base dugout at Camden Yards wanted it to be so badly. This is the type of swing that could nearly single-handedly ignite a postseason push, which the O’s are attempting to make.
However, MLB’s Replay Operations Center in New York did not see enough to overturn the call on the field. It wasn’t confirmed -- meaning there would have been conclusive evidence that the foul call was correct -- but it stood.
Alonso, visibly displeased, returned to the batter’s box and struck out to end the frame. Then, New York rallied for a pair of runs the next half-inning in the top of the eighth, and Baltimore was saddled with a 5-3 loss it felt could have been avoided.
The Replay Operations Center issued the following statement: “After viewing all relevant angles, the Replay Official could not definitively determine that the ball left the playing field in fair territory. The call stands, and it is a foul ball.”
“It is what it is. The video room and the umpire at third base, they called it foul,” Alonso said later, standing in front of his locker in the Orioles’ clubhouse to address the media shortly after the game’s conclusion. “That’s the only opinions that really matter.”
But momentum is real in this sport. And it felt like this single moment took a game from moving in one direction and then helped veer it the complete opposite way.
“One-hundred percent, absolutely,” Alonso said when asked about potential momentum shifts after these types of calls. “But it is what it is, unfortunately.”
Alonso got all of the first-pitch slider he saw from left-hander Brent Headrick. The ball left Alonso’s bat at 107.1 mph and traveled a Statcast-projected 410 feet, seemingly tucked inside the foul pole.
“Looking at the video, the view from where the camera was pointing straight down the line, from what it looked like, it was to the right of the yellow and the pole,” Alonso said, “so I thought it was fair.”
“You definitely never know what they’re going to rule, but I was really surprised that it came back 'stands,'” O’s manager Craig Albernaz said. “The first thing is, on the dugout iPads, there’s ball-tracking data with the field that the players see, so it’s really tough to have that come back as stands and have that visual in the dugout, as well. ...
“It’s not why we lost the game. But I think that moment was a big moment, especially [because] it takes a home run from us, and Pete, as well. I had a pretty good look at it. It’s tough for the umpire down the third-base line, the way he’s looking and going over the foul pole. But I think when it goes to review and you look at all the angles and video, and especially the ball-tracking data, yeah, pretty disappointing.”
It would have been almost poetic for Alonso to come through in this fashion. It would have been his second homer of the night -- he blasted a Statcast-projected 423-foot opposite-field solo shot to right-center field in the third -- and his 30th of his first season in Baltimore.
Instead, the game’s momentum swung the other way. O’s right-hander Cam Sanders loaded the bases in the eighth with a walk and a pair of hit-by-pitches. Then, righty Yennier Cano entered the two-out jam and yielded a go-ahead RBI infield single to George Lombard Jr. The Yanks tacked on another run on a wild pitch by Cano that allowed Jazz Chisholm Jr. to score from third.
The Orioles (61-66) have lost three in a row and will look to avoid getting swept by the Yankees in the finale of a three-game series on Thursday night.
As much as Wednesday night stung, Baltimore -- still only 1 1/2 games out of the third AL Wild Card spot -- can’t let the feelings linger.
“Obviously, it sucks for us. It sucks, yeah. It sucks,” Alonso said. “But it is what it is. The umpire made the call on the field, and the review room stood with that call, and that’s what we have to live with and move on, and we have to as a team, and individually, bear down and respond to adversity.”