BALTIMORE _ Throughout this season, Manny Machado has entertained all questions about his future. Through every stop in each city he could potentially land, he answered all queries about trades or his pending free agency, but always emphasized that he wanted to maintain his focus on the field.
It's made for a season unlike any other for Machado _ who could be traded to a contender any day now _ but he's still been able to allow his play do the talking throughout one of the worst seasons in Orioles history.
And as another Orioles game was derailed by a unique series of events, Machado kept his club in Tuesday night's game against the New York Yankees nearly by himself, hitting a pair of game-tying homers before second baseman Jonathan Schoop's game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Orioles a 6-5 walk-off victory.
It's a near certainty that Machado will be performing such heroics elsewhere before long, as each memory he creates for the hometown crowd at Camden Yards in an Orioles uniform could be among his last. Seven teams have already made trade offers for Machado, and this week's series against the Yankees coincided with news that the Yankees are also making a play for Machado.
And on Tuesday night, the Orioles (26-66) had a rare reason to celebrate. After Schoop's two-out game-winning hit skipped into right field, the first one to give him a celebratory shoulder bump as he rounded first base was Machado, who recorded his fifth multi-homer game of the season and the 19th of his career.
On most nights, there's one play, one at-bat or one sequence of pitches that sends the Orioles on their way to another defeat. And on Tuesday night, that one moment took the form of Joey Rickard nearly making of his finest defensive plays of the year, but the ball popped out of his glove when Schoop accidentally kicked it trying to avoid a collision.
Staked to a 2-0 lead, Andrew Cashner had retired the first 13 batters he faced before Didi Gregorius' one-out single in the fifth. Miguel Andujar lifted a foul fly ball to right that Rickard made a diving play on before Schoop made contact with him.
Andujar walked on the next pitch, and the next batter, Greg Bird, hit a three-run homer onto the flag court in right field. Cashner crouched over, hands on his knees in resignation.
But Machado would come to the rescue, tying the game on the first pitch of the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer off Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka, sending an 89-mph cutter deep into the left-field stands an estimated 444 feet.
Cashner left the game with runners at the corners and one out in the seventh, allowing double by Gregorius on a ball that skipped past a diving Adam Jones in center field and a single by Andujar. Miguel Castro allowed both inherited runners to score, the first on Bird's sacrifice fly and the second two batters later on Neil Walker's RBI single.
In the bottom half of the inning, Machado tied the game again. After Jones reached with a one-out single, he took a 97-mph full-count fastball over the grounds crew shed in right-center, a ball that was initially ruled in play for a long single but became a home run after a boundary call review.
Machado wasn't allowed to win the game in the ninth against Dellin Betances as he was issued an intentional walk with first base open and one out after Caleb Joseph was hit by a pitch and Jones looped an opposite-field double into the right-field corner.
Betances struck out Mark Trumbo, but Schoop hit an opposite-field single that skipped over Bird's glove as first base and scored Joseph for the winning run.
