Baltimore Orioles at Athletics

Scoring in the top of the 10th has begun to feel like a must for any road team when extra innings come into play. “You kind of have to, or you feel like you’re out of it,” Orioles infielder Coby Mayo said. “Obviously, you’re not, but that’s how it can feel.” With two outs in the 10th of Friday’s series opener against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park, Mayo and a Baltimore club that hadn’t scored since the second inning faced considerable pressure. In a 2-2 game, catcher Carlos Narváez stood at second base as the automatic runner, and pinch-runner Gunnar Henderson was aboard at first. Mayo knew the drill. “Put the ball in play, good things happen,” he said. The Orioles’ resident lefty-masher took an 0-1 fastball from A’s southpaw Brady Basso the other way to right field, scoring Narváez with the go-ahead run en route to a 4-3 win over the A’s. His go-ahead hit was the biggest of several key contributions from some of the Orioles’ under-the-radar players in a win that put Baltimore (66-69) just two games out of the third and final American League Wild Card spot.   After Christian Encarnacion-Strand followed Mayo’s single with an opposite-field RBI hit of his own, reliever Alex Hoppe -- acquired for outfielder Taylor Ward ahead of the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline -- handled the bottom of the 10th. The righty struck out A’s rookie Henry Bolte for a key first out and worked around a two-out RBI single to lock down the game and earn his first Major League save, a milestone that came with a celebratory beer shower in the clubhouse. “I think I had to use body wash three or four times and three or four times with shampoo just to get the smell out, but all worth it in the end,” Hoppe said.