{"id":748746,"date":"2026-07-11T08:03:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/748746\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T08:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:03:51","slug":"samuel-basallos-8th-inning-homer-lifts-the-orioles-to-a-5-3-win-over-the-royals-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/748746\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Basallo\u2019s 8th-inning homer lifts the Orioles to a 5-3 win over the Royals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">BALTIMORE (AP) \u2014 Samuel Basallo hit a go-ahead, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MLB\/status\/2075751040779997539\" rel=\"nofollow\">two-run homer<\/a> in the eighth inning, and the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Kansas City Royals 5-3 in the opener of a three-game series between last-place teams Friday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Blaze Alexander also homered for Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Jac Caglianone and Isaac Collins hit solo shots for Kansas City, which has lost three in a row and 11 of 15.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Matt Strahm (3-2) entered with the game tied at 3-all and yielded a leadoff single to Pete Alonso. Basallo then hooked a 1-2 slider <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Orioles\/status\/2075750911708713349?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">just inside the foul pole in right<\/a> for his 15th homer of the season and chucked his bat with both hands toward the Orioles dugout in celebration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Baltimore led 3-2 entering the eighth, and manager Craig Albernaz allowed starter Brandon Young to stay in with only 77 pitches. But Collins capped an eight-pitch at-bat with <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Royals\/status\/2075747655293042947?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">a shot to center<\/a> to chase the right-hander.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Young allowed three runs in seven-plus innings and struck out five.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rico Garcia (4-1) relieved Young and retired all three batters he faced. Andrew Kittredge worked around Michael Massey\u2019s one-out double in the ninth for his third save and second in as many days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Baltimore took the lead in the second when <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Orioles\/status\/2075726861833843101?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jackson Holliday<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Orioles\/status\/2075727496322957793?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Gunnar Henderson<\/a> delivered consecutive RBI singles against Kansas City starter Luinder Avila.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kansas City tied it with a two-run fourth. Caglianone <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Royals\/status\/2075733132033065326?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">led off with a shot to right<\/a>, and Josh Rojas\u2019 two-out double scored Massey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Alexander hit his fourth homer of the year in the fourth off Avila, who allowed three runs in five innings and struck out three.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kansas City LHP Noah Cameron (5-6, 4.77 ERA) faces Baltimore RHP Kyle Bradish (5-9, 3.75) on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALTIMORE (AP) \u2014 Samuel Basallo hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in the eighth inning, and the Baltimore Orioles&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[143,47,2538,5,4362,231,55,1103,4,125],"class_list":["post-748746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimoreorioles","tag-baseball","tag-isaac-collins","tag-jac-caglianone","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-matt-strahm","tag-mlb","tag-orioles"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116900309470103562","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}