None of that mattered once Baltimore got to Griffin. It was 88 degrees at first pitch, the ball was carrying, and the Orioles turned a scoreless game into a laugher with an 8-run third inning that Cleveland never had a real answer for.
Cleveland clawed back with 3 runs in the sixth to make it interesting again, but the hole from that third inning was too deep to climb out of. One Polymarket poster caught the mood in real time — "Let's go," someone wrote a minute after first pitch as Cleveland jumped in front, and "The clappening starts now," as one Orioles-holding poster in the room put it once Baltimore's big inning got rolling. Baltimore finished with 10 hits and 1 error, Cleveland matched the offense with 9 hits but committed 2 errors of its own, and the extra outs turned rough innings into disasters.
The finale gives Baltimore the series, 2 games to 1, on a night full of individual absences and a club already eliminated from realistic contention. Cleveland leaves Baltimore having split the set rather than sweeping it, but still holds onto the final AL wild-card spot with the stretch run still ahead.