DETROIT -- The Orioles were trailing by seven runs heading into the seventh inning, and Tigers ace Tarik Skubal was working on a scoreless gem on Wednesday afternoon. Doesn’t seem like the best recipe for a come-from-behind victory, right?
Well, you may not believe what happened from there.
Baltimore plated five runs in the seventh, tied the game on Coby Mayo’s two-run triple in the eighth and came away with a 10-9 victory at Comerica Park thanks to Colton Cowser’s go-ahead two-out RBI single in the 12th. The O’s (53-56) took two of three games to win the series in Detroit.
It was the Orioles’ largest comeback win since they erased a nine-run deficit in an 11-10 win over the Red Sox at Camden Yards on June 30, 2009. It was also the first time Baltimore won a game in which it trailed 7-0 since July 2, 1995, when it pulled off a 9-7 victory at Toronto.
Skubal didn’t give up a run until his 92nd and final pitch of the day, when the O’s broke up the shutout attempt on Leody Taveras’ two-out RBI single in the seventh. Skubal exited with runners on first and second in the inning as he was replaced by right-hander Kyle Finnegan.
After Jeremiah Jackson drew a 12-pitch walk to load the bases against Finnegan, Jackson Holliday came off the bench and knocked a pinch-hit two-run single. Taylor Ward followed with a two-run single of his own to cut Detroit’s lead to 7-5 and chase Finnegan.
In the eighth, the Orioles had runners on second and third and one out against right-hander Drew Anderson, who then gave up a game-tying two-run triple to Mayo that banged off the wall in straightaway center field. It was the first three-bagger of the 24-year-old’s 186-game career.
Neither team scored in the ninth or 10th. The Tigers had a prime opportunity to walk it off with runners on the corners and one out in the bottom of the 10th, but right-hander Tyler Wells kept the game tied at 7 by getting Eduardo Valencia to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.
Baltimore scored a pair of runs in the top of the 11th on a go-ahead sac fly by Yohel Pozo and an RBI single from Holliday. However, Detroit immediately responded, as Spencer Torkelson tied the game at 9 with a leadoff two-run homer off Rico Garcia in the bottom of the inning.
The O’s had a runner on third with two outs in the 12th when Cowser worked an impressive at-bat against Drew Sommers. Cowser fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and then knocked a go-ahead left-on-left RBI single.