Kansas City Royals at Baltimore Orioles

Blaze Alexander was standing down the tunnel inside the Orioles’ first-base dugout at Camden Yards during the bottom of the eighth inning Friday night when he saw a ball flying like a missile down the right-field line. The next thing Alexander could see from his vantage point was teammate Samuel Basallo slowly walking down the line. Then, the 21-year-old rookie took his bat, raised it above his head and heaved it toward the dugout in an emotionally charged and emphatic manner. “Obviously, the crowd erupted,” Alexander said. “I was like, ‘All right, something sick happened.’” Quite “sick” indeed. Basallo stepped up as the hero by swatting a game-winning two-run home run in Baltimore’s series-opening 5-3 victory over Kansas City. The 373-foot, 105.9 mph blast, per Statcast, was a left-on-left shot off Matt Strahm that went over the right-field scoreboard and just stayed fair by tucking inside the foul pole. After watching long enough to make sure it would stay fair, Basallo let all of his excitement out. He overhead-tossed his lumber, hopped a few times down the first-base line, unleashed a massive right-handed fist pump and began his trot around the bases, all with a huge smile on his face. “I enjoy every home run that I hit to the maximum,” Basallo said via team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “I don’t do those reactions to inconvenience anyone or anything like that. I’m just really enjoying the game. I enjoy every homer that I hit. I’ve always been that way since I was a kid. I’m really just out there enjoying the moment with these guys, enjoying that we can go out there and have fun and get the win.” Baseball is supposed to be fun, right? This was fun -- one of the game’s rising young stars coming through with a clutch home run, then celebrating it with his team. “It’s important to remember that it’s a kids’ game. It’s important to go out there and have fun,” Basallo said. “It’s a game of failure. It’s a difficult game. But it is important to remember that you can go out there and you can have fun and enjoy yourself.”