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Down three runs to the Houston Astros in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Baltimore Orioles turned to Anthony Santander with the bases loaded. He delivered.
Santander sent a 98 mph fastball from Bryan Abreu 403-feet to right field for his fourth-career grand slam.
It’s the 38th home run of 2024 for Santander. That’s a career-high, and third-most in MLB.
Baltimore’s win over Houston is just their third in eight games, and the first over the Astros this season. They’ve fallen into a 1.5 game deficit behind the New York Yankees for the AL East lead.
“That is a reminder of who we are as a team,” Santander said postgame.
He and the Orioles will look to ride the momentum into the remaining two games of the series, after losing the first game 6-0.
Anthony Santander: ‘That Was a Playoff Atmosphere’
The moment after Santander’s ball left his bat was among the loudest at Camden Yards all season. He described the home environment as “a playoff atmosphere” when talking with reporters postgame.
“That was a playoff atmosphere,” Santander said, according to Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports. “So happy that the fans stayed in that kind of game to support us all the way to the ninth inning. And then, we got a win, that’s the most important and I’m so happy for that.”
On his go-ahead home run, Santander told reporters he was looking for the fastball. He got what he wanted.
“I was looking fastball,” Santander said. “That’s a guy who throws 99 mph and they’ve been throwing me up and in the whole game. I just said, ‘This is a guy who throws a lot of sliders, too, but I’m going to stay with the fastball right here.’ Even the one that I took on 2-0, I was automatically taking right there. 2-0, bases loaded, no outs, you don’t want to be too aggressive in that situation. I was a little bit aggressive on 2-1, looking for that fastball up.”
The 29-year-old All-Star is hopeful that the win over Houston can be a turning point for the Orioles. One that puts them back on a winning trajectory.
“It’s a tough game,” Santander said. “There is a lot of up and down. But we showed right there who we are, and hopefully we can continue to do that for the rest of the season.”
Cade Povich Struggles in Spot-Start
Rookie lefty Cade Povich received another opportunity to make his bid for a roster spot against the Astros. He was recalled to MLB on August 20, after Zach Eflin went on the Injured List.
The 24-year-old pitched 5 innings and gave up 5 runs on 8 hits. Povich’s ERA went from 5.77 to 6.10 after the outing against Houston.
He told reporters there are positive takeaways from his 10th career start.
“I think, still a lot of positives from what I’ve been working on going into it,” Povich said postgame on August 23. “A couple pitches, I think, that just kind of went the other way and then a couple of it was just on the side of being in the zone ball, but not necessarily executing it the way I might have wanted to.”
But ultimately, confidence is key for Povich.
“I think confidence is a big part of everything as a whole, especially when it comes to pitching,” Povich continued. “Letting my stuff play in the zone was one thing that I needed to be more confident in and was what I tried working on and I think it’s continued to carry over and now it’s just onto the next step of executing pitches a little bit better. But just continuing to build off each one.”
Baltimore’s fifth-ranked prospect is 1-6 through 10 starts in 2024. But with Eflin down, and Trevor Rogers optioned to Triple-A, he’ll continue to get opportunities on a banged up pitching staff.
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