Camden Yards could see rules change after strange triple reveals outfield oddity

Camden Yards has been around for 34 years, and on Tuesday night, an Astros outfielder found new ground in the right field corner. In the eighth inning of the Baltimore Orioles first game against the Astros, Harris hit a ball over the first baseman's head that landed in fair territory and proceeded to slice into the corner in right field, which bulges out to make room for a large garage door where grounds crew equipment and other vehicles can enter the field.

Rightfielder Dylan Beavers gave chase, and as the camera followed him into the corner, it saw him stretch impossibly deep into the corner to retrieve the ball. The ball was deep enough into this mysterious recess that Harris was able to motor around to third.

What had happened was Harris’s hit bounced perfectly off the corner of the padded wall next to the garage door, and the ball kicked into a small nook that no ball had found before. Beavers ran to where the ball should have been, only to find it somewhere it had never been before. With the ball tucked so deep in the corner, he had to reach in and run back where he had an angle to throw the ball back into the infield.

Dylan Beavers made the right play when faced with a unique challenge in rightfield

On the broadcast, Kevin Brown and Jim Palmer speculated that Beavers could have thrown his hands up the way outfielders are taught to do when the ball is wedged in the fence, which turns the play into an automatic double. The Dodgers outfielders famously leaned on this rule last World Series, eliminating a massive RBI triple/inside the park home run.

However, the ball was not lodged or stuck; it was just in a weird place, and with the ground rules stating that the corner was in play, the umpires would have been well within their rights to deny Beavers' request for a dead ball and allow Harris to run all the way home while Beavers stood there with his arms in the air.

It's possible because the corner where the ball ended up was out of sight of any camera or umpire that Beavers could have signaled for a dead ball, and the umpires might have called the play dead, either believing the ball to be lodged or not knowing that the weird corner is in fact in play. That's a lot of ifs, and the best-case scenario you'd get a big umpire review and maybe a screaming fit from whichever manager ended up on the short side of the ruling. Beavers did the right thing by playing it straight up.

Post-game, Craig Albernaz answered a couple of questions about the strange play and confirmed to Andy Kostka of The Banner that the nook is in play. He also said the Orioles would look into it and maybe change the ground rules.

The Orioles having done so many wall adjustments over the last few years, it is interesting that this strange corner in right field was allowed to continue to exist. With this being maybe the first ball hit there in 34 years, it seems unlikely that this will continue to plague the Orioles outfielders, but don't be surprised if next year's offseason renovations include filling in this odd cranny in the outfield.

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