BALTIMORE — The Orioles didn’t have a walk-off win through their first 119 games of the season.

Now, they can’t stop.

Samuel Basallo’s walk-off single in the 11th inning Tuesday lifted the Orioles to a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, sending the several thousand fans remaining at Camden Yards home happy. The walk-off is the second in the past five days for the Orioles’ 21-year-old slugging sensation.

It originally appeared Basallo’s shallow fly-ball down the left field line landed foul, but an umpire review revealed the ball hit the line. The bases were loaded when Basallo stepped to the plate, so the ruling brought home Gunnar Henderson, who was standing at home plate during the review and sprinted out with his teammates in the dugout to celebrate with Basallo.

The walk-off win is the Orioles’ third in their past four games after they won in such style twice over the Los Angeles Dodgers this past weekend. Basallo blasted a walk-off homer in Friday’s win, while Emmanuel Rivera’s two-run single capped off a miraculous comeback that began with Jackson Holliday’s homer with two outs in the ninth to spoil Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s no-hit bid.

The Orioles’ first walk-off win of the season came in their 120th contest on Aug. 13 when Holliday’s double gave Baltimore a win over the Seattle Mariners.

Before Basallo’s heroics, it was reliever Dietrich Enns who kept the Orioles alive, tossing two scoreless innings to keep the game tied for the offense. Yennier Cano had a chance to prevent the game from going to extras and earn a save, but he squandered a one-run lead in the ninth by surrendering a solo homer to Tommy Pham.

Enns and Basallo were in position to win the game because of Kyle Bradish’s excellent start. In his third start back from Tommy John elbow reconstruction surgery, Bradish twirled seven innings of one-run ball to stymie the Pirates’ hitters.

Three of the Pirates’ first five hitters reached base off Bradish for his shakiest start since rejoining the Orioles in late August. Andrew McCutchen’s two-out seeing-eye single that barely evaded a diving Henderson gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead.

The 28-year-old right-hander struck out 10 batters across six innings of two-run ball against the Red Sox in his season debut — his first start since June 2024 — and followed that up with a four-inning, two-run start last week against the Padres. Bradish finished fourth in American League Cy Young Award voting in 2023 and was even better in his eight starts last season.

Leadoff man Holliday and Jeremiah Jackson, now the Orioles’ everyday No. 2 hitter, both singled to begin the bottom of the first. The duo has been quite formidable in recent weeks, with Holliday walking more often and Jackson posting an .867 OPS since his MLB debut Aug. 1. Ryan Mountcastle drove in Holliday and tied the game with a sacrifice fly.

Bradish and Pirates starter Mike Burrows then traded zeros before Pittsburgh brought in reliever Braxton Ashcraft. One of the two hits he allowed was Jackson’s homer, the 25-year-old’s fifth since he was called up after the trade deadline. It’s unclear how Jackson fits on the 2026 Orioles, but if he keeps hitting like this, it’ll be difficult to deny him a spot.

Bradish cruised through the rest of his outing, needing only 81 pitches to complete seven frames, his longest outing since his surgery. He allowed only four hits and two walks while striking out six.

The Orioles have won six of their past seven games, including a sweep of the San Diego Padres last week and a series win over the Dodgers. This is perhaps Baltimore’s best stretch of baseball since the beginning of the 2024 season when the Orioles were coming off a 101-win campaign the year before.

That’s where the similarities end. The 2023 and 2024 teams made the postseason. This one will not. Baltimore improved to 67-77 and maintains an outside chance of ending the season .500.

Instant analysis

Bradish is an ace.

There’s no longer any need for caveats. Sure, he has to stay healthy, but they all do. The injury he suffered last year is the most common for pitchers, and with each start like Tuesday’s, he shows the surgery is behind him. Despite not fully having the ability to maintain his mid-90s mph fastball into the late innings, Bradish’s first three starts this year have been refreshing for a club that’s lacked consistent starting pitching (aside from Trevor Rogers, of course).

“It’s a guy that’s got a chance to lead us on the mound and lead us in the clubhouse, so it’s great having him here,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said pregame. “It’s a huge presence, man. It’s a huge presence today. When you walk in, you feel like you got a chance to win today, because it’s Bradish day. It’s a huge presence in the clubhouse, and that’s not an easy thing to do for a pitcher.”

Since late July 2022 when Bradish rejoined the Orioles rotation following a rough start to his career, he’s posted a 2.92 ERA in 54 starts, which ranks seventh in MLB among pitchers with at least as many starts. The hurlers ahead of him: Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell, Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale and Max Fried.

All of them are aces, and so is Bradish.

What they’re saying

Mansolino on being teammates with McCutchen in the Pirates’ minor league system:

“Andrew was the 18-year-old phenom; I was the 22-year-old senior sign. Andrew was the first person in professional baseball that made me realize that I was not going to play in the big leagues. He might have been 17 at the time, and we were in rookie ball together — and I played with him the next year too — but he was so talented and so gifted and I was four or five years older than him. I was a grown man at that point, and he was still a kid and he just ran circles around me.

“Andrew obviously has had an incredible career, and he’s a great, great player in this league for a long time. Whenever I get to see him, it’s exciting.”

By the numbers

Through Bradish’s first 10 career starts in 2022, he posted a 7.38 ERA and was placed on the IL with a minor injury. Since his return that season, he’s been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball — and the Orioles have been one of the league’s best teams with him on the mound.

The Orioles are 36-18 (a .666 winning percentage) in Bradish’s starts over that stretch — good for a 108-win pace.

On deck

The last time the Orioles faced one of the National League’s best starting pitchers, they were no-hit by him through 8 2/3 innings. They’ll look to perform better Wednesday against Skenes, the NL Cy Young Award front-runner, than they did Saturday against the Dodgers’ Yamamoto. Though if Wednesday’s contest ends similarly to Saturday’s, the Orioles will surely take that.

Around the horn

— It appears the Orioles received good news with starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano’s foot. The right-hander said Tuesday that he expects to make his next start after leaving Sunday’s game early when he took a hard grounder off his foot. “We’ll see how I move around today, but as of now, I don’t think it’ll have any effect,” Sugano said through team interpreter Yuto Sakurai.

— Mansolino provided several updates on other injured Orioles players. Starting pitcher Dean Kremer (forearm) “checked all the boxes” during his catch play session Sunday, likely signaling that the right-hander won’t have to be placed on the injured list. Adley Rutschman (oblique) is ramping up his hitting progression, including taking his “full swing” in the cage and taking batting practice on the field this weekend. Jordan Westburg (ankle) is expected to begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment this weekend.

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