Orioles catch massive break on Twins mistake that changed everything on Opening Day

On Opening Day, the Baltimore Orioles' offense couldn't get anything going against Minnesota Twins starter Joe Ryan. Last season, it was common for the Orioles to be held scoreless deep into the game and let go of the rope. In 2025, the Orioles were shut out 15 times, and in 10 of those games, they lost by 5 or more runs. However, this is a new season, and late in the game against the Twins, the Orioles hustled and took advantage of multiple small mistakes by their opponent to score the deciding runs and get their season off to a good start.

It started with a left on left single from Samuel Basallo. It's notable that Basallo got this opportunity because in years past, this was the exact situation where the Orioles would have pulled their talented young prospect from the game in order to get the platoon advantage. Not this year, Albernaz trusted his rookie DH to get the job done, and he did.

The next batter, Tyler O'Neill, hit a firm grounder up the middle. This play is where the Twins made their first mistake. With the less-than fleet-footed Basallo on base and the ball hit to shallow center, Byron Buxton took his time getting to the ball and throwing it in. Basallo read the play well and hustled first to third, putting himself 90 feet closer to scoring position and making it possible for him to score on a sac fly.

Orioles took advantage of multiple Twins miscues to steal an Opening Day win

The very next batter, Colton Cowser, who has had his share of struggles making contact in situations like this, provided the Orioles with just what they needed: a fly ball to left field deep enough to score the runner from third. Here's where the Twins made yet another small, crucial mistake. At a glance, there wasn't much to the play that Twins leftfielder Austin Martin made, but closer examination reveals that he made several fundamental mistakes. He had time to get behind the ball to put himself in position to make a strong throw, but instead opted to field the ball running sideways, effectively eliminating any chance of catching the runner at home.

On top of the approach to the ball and the strength of the throw, Martin also threw the ball to third base, making it possible for O'Neill to tag from first and advance into scoring position. In the moment, it seemed like a small thing, but it immediately proved consequential. O'Neill advanced to third on a sac fly off the bat of Coby Mayo, which would not have advanced him to second if he had still been at first.

Martin's decision to throw the ball into third ended up being the difference between O'Neill being on third and scoring on Blaze Alexander's subsequent single and O'Neill being on first and simply advancing to second on the play. That decision essentially decided the game as O'Neill's run ended up being the winning run in a 2-1 victory for the Orioles.

This is not a game that the 2025 Orioles would have won. The attention to detail and the aggressive base running from Basallo and O'Neill allowed the Orioles to take advantage of a team playing sloppy baseball and escape with a win.