Toronto produces walk-off win in the 15th inning

TORONTO - A marathon game that featured 21 runs, 29 hits, 10 homers and 20 pitchers finally ended early Tuesday morning at Toronto. Anthony Alford hit a walk-off homer with two outs in the last of the 15th as Toronto beat the Orioles 11-10.

Alford hit a 2-2 changeup from right-hander Ryan Eades, the 10th O's pitcher, to end a five-hour, 21-minute struggle. Eades had thrown 2 2/3 scoreless when Eades connected for his first career home run in his 51st career plate appearance.

Earlier, for the second day in a row, the Orioles' Chris Davis hit a go-ahead homer. He has hit more homers at Rogers Centre than he has at any other road ballpark.

Davis hit a homer to right-center in the 12th inning to give the Orioles a 10-9 lead. Davis hit a 3-2 fastball from Jordan Romero 402 feet for his second go-ahead homer in two days. It was the O's fifth home run of the night to tie their season high. Davis now has 21 homers in 69 career games in Toronto.

But after finally taking another lead, the O's gave it right back as Toronto tied the game 10-10 in the home 12th. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reached on a two-base error by third baseman Rio Ruiz and later scored on a sac fly off David Hess for the tie.

If your starting pitcher is going to give up three quick homers, it helps if you can hit five. And maybe get three of them within one inning.

Maybe Austin Hays will hit two, drive in five runs and make several more sparkling plays in center field. Well, he did do all of that, but it did not produce a victory.

With the two homers tonight, Hays has hit four homers his last five games and 24 at-bats.

Giving up three homers to the first eight batters he faced was not the way O's right-hander Chandler Shepherd wanted his night to start. But it did as Toronto opened an early 5-0 lead.

Shepherd trailed 3-0 three batters into his night. After the Orioles went 1-2-3 against Blue Jays right-hander Clay Buchholz, the last of the first went single, walk, three-run homer by Randal Grichuk for the 3-0 lead. He hit his seventh homer this year in 14 games against the Orioles and his 12th in 29 career games.

When the last of the second started, the Toronto longballs continued. Brandon Drury and Jonathan Davis went back-to-back and Toronto led 5-0. Shepherd allowed three early homers on counts of 0-2, 1-2 and 1-2. He would give up six runs over three innings on 63 pitches.

But Hays had not been heard from much early tonight, and that would soon change in a very big way.

With two outs and none on in the Baltimore third, Chance Sisco was hit by a pitch and Jonathan Villar singled. Hays then blasted a three-run shot to left center to make it a 5-3 deficit. He hit his third homer of the year and third in the last five games.

But Toronto got a run back in the third off Shepherd to lead 6-3. That was before Hays made another great catch, leaping into the wall in the last of the fourth, and hit another homer in the top of the fifth. He's making quite an impression.

Villar and Hays produced back-to-back homers off Buchholz to start the O's fifth and pull Baltimore, once down 5-0, within 6-5. Villar hit No. 24 and Hays No 4. It was Hays' first career multi-homer game and, to that point, he had four homers his last 19 at-bats.

But Baltimore was not done in the fifth. After the back-to-back homers, Trey Mancini walked and Justin Shafer replaced Buchholz. But the first batter he faced, Ruiz, hit an opposite-field homer to left as the Orioles took a 7-6 lead on No. 12 for Ruiz.

Through the fifth the Orioles had hit four homers, with three coming within a five-batter span in the fifth. And they led for the first time tonight.

The game stayed 7-6 until the last of the seventh, when Cavan Biggio - who drove in eight runs in three games last week against the Orioles - homered. He hit a line drive out to right for No. 16, and the game was tied 7-7. Biggio went 8-for-16 in that series at Camden Yards last week.

But the Orioles would go back ahead, and it was Villar and Hays getting it done again in the Baltimore eighth. With two outs, Stevie Wilkerson tripled against Derek Law, and Sisco walked. Villar then looped a single into left for a two-RBI night and an 8-7 lead. Hays followed with an RBI single to center for a 9-7 edge. That made him 3-for-5 to that point, with two homers and five RBIs.

According to STATS, Hays tonight became the first major league rookie to have five or more RBIs, a stolen base and an outfield assist in the same game since RBIs became an official stat in 1920.

The Orioles and right-hander Shawn Armstrong could not close this game out, needing just three outs. He gave up three hits and two runs in the last of the ninth, and Toronto tied the game on Cavan Biggio's sac fly and Guerrero's RBI single. It was 9-9 headed for extras.

The Orioles (51-106) have lost six of eight games. They are 7-10 versus Toronto and 4-3 at Rogers Centre. They lost the first game of their final road trip of the 2019 season.

Manager Brandon Hyde on a long night that ended in defeat: "Well, another just tough loss that we've had our fair share and then some. Really happy with the way we swung the bats, especially the first nine innings. Really good at-bats, came back from a deficit and then we just have a hard time holding leads. And we've had a hard time all year, and another one tonight."

Hyde on mental challenges of long night: "We've been in a lot of them where we've been on the losing side of some tough games. Once again, we're in the game. Once again, we have the lead and we just don't hold it. Make a couple of mistakes. Our guys did a great job fighting. Davis with a homer in extra innings. We did a lot of good things offensively and played good defense for the first nine innings. Let down a little bit in extra innings, defensively. We just have a hard time holding on. And looking for some guys to give the ball to to secure leads."

Hays on his night coming in a loss: "Yeah, it's a really tough loss for us. We were trying as hard as we could to push a couple more runs across for our staff there at the end. We just couldn't get another one in."

Hays on his great catch, robbing Jonathan Davis at the wall in the fourth: "I was playing Jonathan Davis oppo right there, and he really got into one to the left-center side of the field. I was peeking at the ball and looking at the wall and just tried to time it up. Ended up coming down with it."