Nearly a decade ago, the Orioles and Texas Rangers met in the American League’s first wild-card game, and Baltimore’s 3-2 victory had no impact on either’s hopes of a return to it. Both are at the bottom of their respective divisions, down to the final games in a long 2021 season.
Yet they treated the announced 10,645 fans at Oriole Park on Saturday night to a game that was tight throughout. It took until the seventh inning for either team to score, with Trey Mancini walking and hustling around to score from first on Pat Valaika’s double. Valaika soon came home on Kelvin Gutiérrez’s home run, his first with the Orioles (50-105) narrowly clearing the right-center wall.