SEATTLE -- It's a rare weekend in the Pacific Northwest that it doesn't rain a drop, but both of the bizarre home runs Luis Ortiz allowed here Saturday at T-Mobile Park nearly altered that.
"I thought they were not gonna be going out of the field. They were just so high," Ortiz would tell me, through team interpreter Stephen Morales, after the Pirates' 6-3, 10 inning loss to the Mariners, one in which Seattle's Julio Rodriguez and Cal Raleigh each hit solo shots off Ortiz that went up off their bats at matching super-steep 43-degree angles to achieve matching super-high heights of 163 feet before barely clearing an outfield fence. "But you have to give credit to the hitters, too."
It took so long for those balls to come down -- 6.9 seconds each, actually -- that the always boisterous faithful here had fallen almost silent through the trajectory until the very end.
Really, check this out in the first from Rodriguez:
And this in the fourth from Raleigh:
Completely crazy, right?
Now, the two paths, in order:
BASEBALL SAVANT
BASEBALL SAVANT
Ortiz still took blame, particularly for the hanging slider to Rodriguez, one of the game's premier young sluggers. Overall, though, his five innings saw three runs on five hits, six strikeouts and four walks and, while it wasn't at the level of his previous start -- 7 2/3 innings, two runs, five hits vs. the Rangers back home -- it sure felt like a continuation.
Maybe most impressive, after each of those home runs, he'd finish off that Seattle inning with a K. Or three Ks, as occurred after the Raleigh shot.
"I just kept pitching," Ortiz told me. "I kept attacking."
This game's ending was devastating, but don't overlook maybe the most enticing development. This kid's good, and he's not going back down.
