Baltimore Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser delivered on back-to-back walk-off home runs in consecutive games at Camden Yards, etching his name into franchise history.
The Baltimore Orioles needed a reason to believe this weekend. They found one in the most unlikely place.
The Baltimore Orioles have not given their fans much to celebrate through the first two months of the season. Sitting at 23-30 ahead of Monday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the team was 12 1/2 games behind the division-leading Rays. A team batting average of .233 ranks them 21st in the majors. A 4.80 earned run average ranks them 26th. It has not been the season Baltimore envisioned.
Then Colton Cowser stepped to the plate in the ninth inning Sunday, and everything changed, twice.
Down 3-2 against the Detroit Tigers with two on and two out, Cowser dug in against Kenley Jansen, one of the most decorated closers in baseball, and hit a three-run walk-off home run to give the Orioles a 5-3 win in the first game of a doubleheader. It was the first walk-off of his career.
Then on Monday, Cowser did it again.
On a Memorial Day afternoon that stretched into extra innings, Cowser stepped in again. The Orioles trailed the Tampa Bay Rays 7-5 in the bottom of the 13th, both bullpens worn thin and the game threatening to slip away. A couple timely hits and sacrifice flies tied the game at 7-7. Then up to the plate came Cowser, and drove a two-run home run in nearly the exact same spot on Sunday, sealing a 9-7 win.
The weight of what he accomplished on Monday took a moment to settle. According to Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun, Cowser is the first Orioles player to hit walk-off home runs in back-to-back games since Fred Lynn did so on May 10-11, 1985.
What makes the number more impressive is how it looks when you look at his season as a whole. Through 43 games, Cowser has hit .198 with two home runs, 12 RBI and a .574 OPS. However, in the two moments that mattered most, he delivered.
The Orioles still have plenty of work to do with a lot of games left. A .230 batting average and a minus-55 runs differential are not going to disappear over a weekend. Yet a player finding something in himself when everything is on the line in back-to-back games is exactly the kind of spark a 24-30 team goes searching for. It is the kind of thing that does not show up in the box score.
