That escalated quickly — and in not in a good way.
After the Mets made things close in the bottom of the eighth on Tuesday, the floodgates opened in the next half thanks to an ugly series of errors on one brutal play in the ninth as the Orioles pulled away with a 9-5 win.
Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson came up with runners on first and second and one out, hitting a shallow fly ball into left field off reliever Danny Young.
Brandon Nimmo, playing fairly deep, charged the ball hard and went into a slide, though the ball tailed to his right hit off the edge of his glove, fell to the grass and rolled all the way to the stands down the left-field line.
But that’s where the fun only began.
Nimmo picked up the ball along the low wall in foul territory, and in an attempt to throw out Cedric Mullins at home, sailed a throw wide of catcher Francisco Alvarez.
Young, wisely, backed up the play and then tried to throw out Ryan Mountcastle, who was running to third base.
But then the southpaw reliever completely misfired, allowing Mountcastle to score after Nimmo’s return throw home came in late.
And because Nimmo decided to throw through to the plate, Henderson ended up safe at third base on the play.
When all was said and done, both Nimmo and Young were charged with throwing errors on the truly wacky play.
“It’s an absolute mess!” Orioles play-by-play man Kevin Brown said on the MASN broadcast after the play unfolded.
Mets announcer Gary Cohen nearly sounded out of breath by the time he got to the end of his call and said “Two runs come home as the Mets throw the ball around in the ninth inning.”
After the game, Nimmo owned up to his mistakes and said he felt bad for not coming up with the play for Young.
“The bad part is I put that game a little bit further out of reach then we would’ve liked,” Nimmo said. “I feel terrible about it for Danny. He did his job getting a little weak contact there. Would have loved to have come up with that play.”
The Mets and Orioles close out their series on Wednesday at 1:10 p.m.