BALTIMORE -- Blame Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s pitch selection. Blame Jackson Holliday for having the nerve to take a home run swing. Blame the architects who designed Oriole Park at Camden Yards’ cozy confines, when 20 of 30 MLB parks would have held the long ball.
But you can stop blaming outfielder Andy Pages for not attempting a spectacular home run-robbing grab to save Yamamoto's no-hit bid on Saturday night, which died with Holliday’s Statcast-projected 362-foot solo shot to commence a historic Orioles rally and a heartbreaking 4-3 Dodgers defeat.
Pages didn’t have a chance.
Fans unfamiliar with Camden Yards -- and even some who know the ballpark well -- may have watched the replay of Holliday’s homer puzzled at why Pages pulled up a few feet short of the wall.
But the camera angle on Holliday's high-arcing shot is deceiving. Multiple Orioles staff working in the section on Saturday confirmed Sunday that the ball landed on a black railing (shown below) at the front of the seats in right-center, set about four feet back -- and maybe 18 inches higher -- than the lip of the wall over the grounds crew shed.
Short of Pages morphing into Stretch Armstrong as he raced toward the warning track, the ball still would’ve been well out of his reach had he leaped. That news will come as a relief to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, if he ever is willing to revisit the ordeal.
“I’d like to think that if there was any chance to make a play on a no-hitter play that you would just exhaust every effort,” Roberts said. “But again, I couldn’t tell, and I refuse to go back and look at it.”
The likely reason Pages held up is because of Camden Yards’ out-of-town scoreboard.
Had Holliday’s ball carried a few feet closer to the foul pole, it may have hit high off the 21-foot facade and taken a large bounce, easily beyond an outfielder who continued too close to the wall.
Of course, that doesn’t let the National League West-leading Dodgers off the hook entirely for a second consecutive walk-off loss and fifth straight loss against teams sitting last in their divisions.
The bullpen has continued to come up short. Tanner Scott blew his ninth save of the season and has allowed 10 homers in 2025 after yielding only six combined in ‘23 and ‘24. While Saturday’s winning runs were inherited, he still entered Sunday with a concerning 4.56 ERA.
Blake Treinen, Saturday’s primary culprit after working a clean inning on Friday, saw his ERA spike to 4.26 after he allowed a double, a hit batter, two walks and was charged with the final three runs of Saturday’s defeat.
Roberts said Sunday he isn’t making a change in his high-leverage roles for now but admitted it could become a possibility if things don’t improve over the final three weeks of the season.
There might even be a world where Shohei Ohtani, eased back into two-way duty this season after serving only as a DH while recovering from surgery to repair his right ulnar collateral ligament in 2024, becomes a high-leverage reliever in the postseason.
“There’s obviously thoughts about that,” Roberts admitted. “I can’t answer that question right now. But we’re going to do whatever we feel gives us the best chance to give us a chance to win. And I know Shohei would be open to whatever. We haven’t certainly made that decision.”