Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Wed, Jun 24, the Los Angeles Angels hosted the Baltimore Orioles in the finale of a three-game series at Angel Stadium. Both teams were split in the series, with Baltimore winning the first game handily 6-1 while the Halos won the middle game 5-1 behind six masterful innings thrown by Ryan Johnson, who secured his first win as a starting pitcher at the big league level. Now in the series finale between both of these under-.500 ballclubs in the American League, the Angels would have José Soriano coming to pitch on the mound on a day game, which he has been wildly successful in so far in this 2026 season. The Orioles countered with big right-hander Trey Gibson.

The game started with an immediate scoring chance for the Angels as Wade Meckler got an infield single to set up the recently-returned from the IL Jorge Soler with an RBI chance. Right on cue, Soler slammed a ball out to left field that went over the head of former Halos left fielder Taylor Ward for a two-run shot. The Angels led 2-0 after one inning, but in the top of the second, Soriano got himself into some trouble. Pete Alonso hit a leadoff single and O’s catcher Samuel Basallo came up and walloped a splitter out to right center field for a two-run homer. The game was tied just like that and a couple of more runners got on base for Baltimore. After a two-out walk to Blaze Alexander, Ward came up for the second time to face his former teammate in Soriano, who managed to get Ward to strike out swinging to end the inning.

The Halos’ bottom of the order missed a chance to break the tie in the bottom of the second, and in the top of the third Soriano kept lagging with high pitch counts and mistakes. Leody Taveras walked with one out and Alonso came up and did some more damage against Soriano. A ball hit down the left-field line by the “Polar Bear” scored Taveras and gave the O’s the lead. Basallo came up and once again inflicted some damage against Soriano. Another two-run shot that went off the “bullseye” in right field this time that increased the Baltimore lead to three runs. Soriano gave up a single to Colton Cowser, but he managed to get the next two hitters out to end the inning. In the bottom of the third, Gibson surrendered a couple of walks to Meckler and Christian Moore, but Donovan Walton grounded out with two outs to conclude the scoring threat.

Soriano was done after three tough innings and the bullpen took over as Mitch Farris came in to chew up a couple of innings. Farris got into a jam in the top of the fourth with a double by Ward and a hit-by-pitch on Gunnar Henderson. But Taveras hit into a double play that had Farris escape. Farris had another double play occur behind him in the top of the fifth and struck out Cowser to end his outing strong. The Angels faced a new pitcher in the bottom of the fifth as lefty reliever Grant Wolfram entered to pitch for Baltimore. With two outs, Meckler came up again and reached first base safely on a high throw by Henderson. Craig Albernaz decided to go get another relief pitcher as Tyler Wells came in to pitch for the Orioles. Wells walked Soler and with two runners on base Moore represented the game-tying run. But Moore struck out against Wells to once again leave the Halos empty-handed.

The bullpen continued its solid pitching as José Fermin and Samy Natera Jr didn’t allow a single base-runner to reach for Baltimore for three straight innings. Meanwhile, the Angels continued missing out on scoring chances as they failed to score in the bottom of the seventh with two runners on base again and Moore once again failed to deliver as the game-tying run. But in the bottom of the eighth against Rico Garcia, the offense finally woke up for the Halos as Walton hit a leadoff double and after a couple of outs, Vaughn Grissom came up as a pinch-hitter for Tyler Heineman, who was making his second start as a catcher for the Angels since being acquired a week ago from the Toronto Blue Jays. Grissom hit a 2-1 slider out into left field that scored Walton and started a two-out rally. Nolan Schanuel came up next as the lead-off hitter in this game and successfully worked a walk on five pitches. Albernaz made a pitching change as Andrew Kittridge relieved Garcia in trying to get the O’s out of trouble. Denzer Guzman came up representing the go-ahead run and he walked on a full count to load the bases. Meckler came up having not been retired by Baltimore pitching yet and he hit a fastball into right field that scored both Grissom and Schanuel to tie the game at five runs apiece. It was the second three-run comeback for the Angels in the past four games. Unfortunately, the rally ended when Soler struck out on three pitches against Kittridge. It was 5-5 heading into the ninth inning.

In a non-save situation, Sam Bachman entered to pitch as there was a couple of defensive changes for the Halos. Logan O’Hoppe was the catcher behind the plate and Grissom was now the third baseman in place of Guzman. Bachman faced a pinch-hitter out of the gate in Jackson Holliday, who struck out on a foul tip. Bachman then got Jeremiah Jackson and Blaze Alexander to fly out to Josh Lowe, who was recalled from Triple-A and playing in center field in place of Jose Siri, who was placed on the paternity list before the game. In the bottom of the ninth, Orioles closer Ryan Helsley entered to pitch and he got Moore, Walton and Oswald Peraza out to force this game to extra innings. The Halos’ record in games that go beyond the ninth inning this season was not good, as they were 3-7 in the ten prior games that have gone into extras. But their three wins have all been walk-offs at home in each of the first three months of the season. Let’s see how this “toast runner” situation played out in this series finale against Baltimore.

The automatic runner at second base for the Orioles was Alexander as the top of the order was due up for Baltimore. Chase Silseth came in to pitch for the Halos in trying to prevent any runs from being scored. Silseth faced his former teammate in Ward to start out the top of the tenth and Ward immediately made an impact with a bloop single into right field that advanced Alexander to third base. Henderson was up next in looking to provide a run-scoring hit for the O’s and he hit the ball very softly to the left. Alexander made a break for home plate immediately, but Silseth reached the ball and scooped it out of his glove to O’Hoppe, who tagged the sliding Alexander. Home plate umpire James Hoye ruled Alexander out at the plate. Albernaz challenged the call and after the review, the ruling on the field was confirmed as an out. A clutch run-preventing play there by Silseth, who got Taveras to fly out to Moore in left field for the second out of the inning. With Ward as the go-ahead run at second, the last batter to get out was Alonso, who ended up hitting a sinker from Silseth on the first pitch of the at-bat out into shallow right field. The ball dropped in and Ward scored to give Baltimore the lead. Silseth had to prevent even more runs from scoring to keep the game within reach for the offense in the bottom half of the inning. Basallo was up and he would whiff at a couple of inside fastballs thrown by Silseth for an inning-ending strikeout.

The Angels now needed to respond back with at least one run to keep this game going and the “toast runner” at second base was Peraza, who served as the game-tying run. The game-winning run was situated at home plate as Zach Neto pinch-hit for Lowe to leadoff the inning. Neto faced lefty reliever Keegan Akin, who struck him out on three pitches. Grissom came up next and he flew out to right field, but Peraza advanced to third base. Down to their last out, the Halos had Schanuel come up to bat in the lefty-lefty matchup and on the second pitch of the at-bat, Schanuel hit a sinker to second base where Jeremiah Jackson fielded it. However, Alonso was way off from the first base bag and Akin ran over to cover for him. With this confusion in coverage, Jackson had to wait for a clean throw to first base and he eventually threw the ball towards Akin, who failed to catch the ball as it went off his glove and Schanuel was safe. Not only that, but the ball deflected off Schanuel’s cleat and went out into the outfield. Peraza had already scored as Schanuel quickly touched second base and raced towards third base. The ball was secured by Alonso as the three-base error now had Schanuel positioned as the game-winning run ninety feet from the plate. Now, Logan O’Hoppe came up for his first at-bat of the day. After fouling off a couple pitches from Akin and taking a ball down and in, O’Hoppe swung at a changeup and the ball barely traveled in front of the plate but it was fair. Schanuel saw this leaning from third base and decided to make a run for it when Basallo decided to go get the ball. But that was a huge error on the part of the catcher as Schanuel maneuvered himself around Basallo and was in the base path towards home plate. Schanuel stepped on the plate and it was game over. The Halos had won this game on one of the weirdest walk-offs ever seen at a ballpark. O’Hoppe was mugged by his teammates as Schanuel’s speed was the key to this amazing rally in the bottom of the tenth. The fifth walk-off win of the season for the Angels might serve as one of the weirdest ones in years.

This walk-off win also gave the Angels their first series win over Baltimore in five years, as the last time they had won a series over the Orioles was on the Fourth of July weekend in 2021. Nine consecutive series losses or failed attempts to win a series against Baltimore and this streak was finally broken by a roster that was very much different than the roster in 2021 that had the previous series win over the Orioles. Kurt Suzuki was on that roster and as the manager of this current Angels team, he has overseen a team that has scored plenty of runs over the past month of play. This positive trend of stellar pitching and hitting will look to continue in the next few weeks towards the 2026 All-Star Break as the Angels play 15 more games before the break. A few series against division rivals will be offset by a couple of weekend series against other American League teams in the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins. At 34-48, the Halos are still in a less than ideal situation, but in a mediocre AL West, anything is possible for a team that simply won’t quit so easily.