The Baltimore Orioles appeared to be in control of Sunday afternoon’s series finale in Toronto against the Blue Jays — until the sixth inning, that was.
It looked as if Shane Baz was going to get out of the frame relatively unscathed thanks to an inning-ending ground-ball double play from Brandon Valenzuela, but Gunnar Henderson was unable to tag Ernie Clement, who weaved around him before reaching second safely.
Henderson and the Orioles were up in arms about what they felt should have been an automatic out for running out of the baseline, and that controversial call triggered four more Toronto runs, ultimately costing them the game. As you can imagine, Baltimore’s shortstop wasn’t pleased when speaking postgame.
“Yeah, very, super frustrating because it would’ve got Shane out of the inning with one run. I’ve obviously got zero clue what he was thinking there. They said he established his lane, but I don’t think you can do that when you’re halfway down the baseline, and when I make an attempt to tag and you run another five feet out of the way, it’s super frustrating. But then again, we also should have won the game and should have made the play before, so I can’t put it all on one play. But very, very frustrating.
Yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna go chase him into right field when I’m trying to turn a double play there. But yeah, that was definitely, I feel like, not a great call”
The 24-year-old Henderson isn’t having his best season so far, hitting just .222, though he has slugged 13 home runs and driven in 32 runs across 65 games played.
It was a rough afternoon all around for Henderson, who also went 0-for-4 at the plate with two strikeouts and made the error that allowed Clement to reach in the first place.
The Orioles shouldn’t have let the sixth inning spiral out of control the way it did, but that said, there’s no doubt the no-call at second base had a major impact on the outcome, so they are justified in being frustrated with how things unfolded.
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