A Pete Alonso home run that wasn't played a key role in the Yankees' 5-3 win over the Orioles on Wednesday night in Baltimore.
The scorching-hot Alonso had already homered once in the game -- his 29th of the season -- when he stepped to the plate in the seventh inning with the bases empty and the score locked at 3-3. With two outs, Alonso drove a first-pitch slider from Brent Headrick deep to left field for an apparent go-ahead home run. However, the ball was ruled foul on the field, which led to a crew chief review. As you'll see, the call would stand despite the broadcast replay appearing to show Alonso's drive on the fair side of the left-field foul pole:
For what it's worth, the Yankees broadcast agreed that the ball certainly appeared to be fair:
Alonso went on to strike out in that at-bat to end the seventh. The Yankees in the top of the eighth put two on the board with a George Lombard Jr. RBI single, followed by a bases-loaded wild pitch from Yennier Cano. That margin would hold up and give the Yankees a win -- and the Orioles a crucial loss.
Given that Alonso's disputed foul ball would've been a solo home run if ruled as such and given that the Yankees won by a pair of runs, it's hard to call it a game-changing call. But it's impossible to say whether a 4-3 Baltimore in the seventh lead would've changed how later events unfolded. Regardless, the call left a sour taste in the … beaks … of the Orioles.
Alonso plainly thought the ball was fair, which he reiterated postgame. The slugger, who inked a five-year free-agent contract with the Orioles this past winter after spending his entire professional career with the Mets, also had thoughts about how to correct such seeming errors in the future. Via the Athletic, Alonso said:
"Like, football, you have the pylon camera with the plane where it shoots right across the goal line. I think having a camera or laser shooting straight up, we have all the technology, analytics and funds. I don't see why we can't do it."
Chris Bassitt, who started for the Orioles and worked 5 ⅔ innings against the Yankees, had similar thoughts, via MASNSports.com:
"Obviously I think it was fair, but yeah, after the call, it's just crazy that we still have this issue. I think we might be the only major sport with an issue like this. It's been years that we have technology that can easily use to say this is exactly the right thing or wrong thing, and the fact that we don't have it in 2026 is crazy. That's my take.
"It's not so much that they got the right call or the wrong call or whatever. I think if you're going to ask the general public and get a 50/50 answer or something like that. But it's just the fact that we don't have the technology in place to actually say, 'Hey, this was fair or foul,' is literally crazy in 2026. It's crazy."
For the Yankees, the win was their third in a row. They're five games back of the Rays in the American League East race, and they're in top wild-card position in the AL. The outcome may prove to be more crucial to the Orioles. While they're now five games under .500 with a -31 run differential, Baltimore at the same time is just a game and a half out of the third and final wild-card spot in the AL. The race for that spot includes a jumble of seven losing teams all within no more than 2 ½ games of playoff position.
