Wowee. It’s hard to sum up a twelve-inning game featuring 29 combined strikeouts and 14 pitchers, but I’ll let MASN announcer Kevin Brown speak for us: “This is some stupefying stuff.” Ben McDonald had said earlier: “This team has no quit in them.” They’re both correct.

There are no symbolic victories in baseball, but this was an impressive, hang-tough effort by an offense whose bottom four players are new and a bullpen that’s trotting out names like Strowd, Enns, Hiraldo. I respect the effort here in giving a Houston team with playoff pretensions fits, forcing them to empty their bullpen and their bench while winning it, in the end, on a fluke play: a 60-mph dribbler to third by Ramón Urías (Why did it have to be Ramón?) that Jackson Holliday, trying for a double play, made a throwing error on.

Now, we can still be honest about the problems. The Orioles offense as a whole needs to be much better. After ambushing Houston’s best pitcher in Framber Valdez last night, getting held to two runs over six innings by a 32-year-old righty who’d only pitched in 17 MLB games felt very Oriole’d. It’s tough when your No. 3 and cleanup hitters, Gunnar and Adley, go a combined 0-for-9. Coby Mayo also finished 0-for-5.

The Birds were also totally hopeless at moving late-inning runners. They had a brilliant chance to win the game in the ninth, when brand-new outfielder Dylan Beavers (!!!) led off with a double to the corner off the nasty Bryan Abreu. But Abreu struck out the side, and there was no rally. In the tenth, the O’s stranded ghost runner Dylan Carlson at second base, as Houston lefty Steven Okert racked up consecutive K’s of Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday before Rutschman flew out. The eleventh inning was a gigantic gut punch: with Luis Vázquez on third and one out, it went as badly as it could have: Dylan Beavers lined a changeup right into Ramón Urías’s glove, and the new Houston second baseman threw to third and nailed the lead runner. “A bit overaggressive there by Vázquez,” said Ben McDonald. (Thanks, Ramón.) (OK, not his fault our team traded him.)

It feels like ages ago, but let’s talk about the first nine innings. Besides the flat offense, another reason this game went to extra innings tied at 4-4 was five innings of three-run baseball by Cade Povich, following a no-drama first inning by 31-year-old Rico García.

Povich’s outing is of potential importance to next season, and I confess, I’m not sure what to make of it. Povich has become known for a Jekyll & Hyde vibe (helpfully embodied by his “Cade” vs. “Slim” personas), and this was that in spades. On the one hand, the bad Povich (Cade) allowed oodles of baserunners and was deeply pitch-inefficient (he took 71 pitches to get through five innings), but he also posted a swing-and-miss rate of near-40% and struck out ten (that’s Slim).

To give some sense of the whiplash:

It’s frustrating, but also, so many swings-and-misses (eighteen). We’ll have to ponder Povich another time.

It was the top of the fifth before the Orioles offense decided to finally put some runs on the board against journeyman Jason Alexander, who pitched well, with crafty stuff and good control. In four innings, Alexander allowed just one hit: a triple by Dylan Carlson. (Of course he was stranded.)

Back up to bat in the fifth after a Daniel Johnson single, the suddenly-awesome Carlson got an Alexander sinker that caught way too much of the plate, and the switch-hitter, batting from the left, demolished it. He stared at the ball’s trajectory so long that the line, “You’re so vain…” popped into my head. Then again, if I’d gone 0-for-35 in August, I’d stare at my home runs, too.

The Orioles were still down 4-2, and again, it was Dylan Carlson that catalyzed a rally. Facing a new Houston pitcher, Bennett Sousa, Carlson took a free pass to bring up Jackson Holliday. Sousa hung him an 86-mph something, and Holliday blasted it into the stands. We had ourselves a 4-4 tie game.

That left a lot of innings to bridge, and a lot of randos in the bullpen to do it. No symbolic victories, yadda yadda, but I found it pretty astonishing that a combined outfit of Kade Strowd, Yennier Cano, Yaramil Hiraldo, Dietrich Enns and Keegan Akin allowed one earned run over 5 2/3 innings after Povich left. Strowd allowed a squeaker of a home run to Altuve, but beyond that, a lot of gutsy performances.

Yennier Cano pitched an impressive eighth, Yaramil Hiraldo showed strong mental makeup to keep it a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, and Dietrich Enns—I mean, it’s just been fun to watch this guy. Tonight, he pitched two innings (the tenth and eleventh) that were so hurtful to Houston I thought the Orioles would win on the strength of that alone.

In the tenth, Enns intentionally walked No. 3 hitter Yainer Díaz to put two on. Then he really got to work. Enns struck out Christian Walker on a dive-bombing changeup. Ramón Urías went down swinging on another changeup! It was just up to pinch-hitter Victor Caratini. No dice! A harmless grounder ended the inning.

After a devastating end to the Orioles’ rally chances in the top of the eleventh, I thought the Orioles might fold in the bottom half. But with Enns back out there, nothing doing. Enns intentionally walked pinch hitter Jeremy Peña, then drew a swinging bunt by Taylor Trammell toward the first base line. Oh no, our first baseman is Coby Mayo! I thought. But I was dead wrong: Mayo dashed forward and glove-flipped home. It was a long throw, but he nailed the ghost runner (Urías again!) at home. It was the best defensive play I’ve seen Mayo make.

Then Enns struck out the catcher Melton. “What are we looking at?!” asked Ben McDonald rhetorically. “The box of chocolates is full tonight!” I don’t know what that means, but I didn’t care.

Alas, again the Birds failed to move the Ghost Runner in the twelfth, and in the bottom half, the universe was not kind. Keegan Akin intentionally walked two more Astros (Altuve, Walker) and Ramón Urías hit a dribbler to Jordan Westburg. Here we can debate: should Westburg have gone home? Houston had emptied its bench, and the next hitter up was a pitcher, so the Orioles could have been patient to get the third out. Instead, Westburg fired to second, and Jackson Holliday blew the throw to first, allowing Ramón Urías to get credited with an RBI forceout instead of an inning-ending double play or a forceout at home.

Let’s end on a happier note: the sun shines thus far on the Dylan Beavers Era. The youngster played a really competent right field, saving a run by getting quickly to a single; he showed situational awareness on the basepaths; and he racked up his first MLB hit, an impressive ninth-inning double off a mean closer in Houston’s Bryan Abreu. I like what I see.

Anyway, there’s no quit in this team, but next year (I’m just saying) we’ll probably need better players.