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!”
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. 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.
But the call went to a replay review. And so, 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 moment that could ignite a postseason push, and the O’s needed it.
Instead, the call stood. Alonso, visibly displeased, returned to the batter’s box and struck out to end the inning. 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 should have gone the other way.
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.
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.
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 would have been almost poetic for Alonso to come through in this type of way. 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.