They don't give style points in baseball, but if you were scoring Orioles-Rockies, you'd want to break out a second, third, maybe even a fourth color of pen to decorate the box with Colton Cowser's ninth-inning catch to save the game for Baltimore. Maybe some tempera as well. You can't make that "F8" pretty enough.
All home-run robberies are special, but they come in flavors. On most, the fielder is totally vertical—having had time to settle on the track for a towering fly ball, and lofting himself at the right moment to haul it in. On Cowser's grand larceny of Jake McCarthy, he had no time to plan it, no time to set. He was at a full sprint back, and hurled himself into the wall, and as he reeled in what would have been a game-winning home run, his legs were scissored outward, his momentum back instead of up. Barely controlled ballet. O's manager Craig Albernaz called it "the best play I’ve ever seen." Dare you dissent?
Side view camera angle of Colton Cowser's home run robbery that the highlight clips are missing: pic.twitter.com/7ZOCod9evV
— Avi Miller (@AviMiIIer) September 1, 2026
Cowser was pumping his fist before he stopped rolling, and the Rockies had crept to the top step of their dugout preparing to storm the field to celebrate McCarthy's walk-off. Closer Andrew Kittredge stood on the mound, stared, waiting to see the flash of white in the glove that would confirm the commandeering. "I’m speechless," Kittredge said later, having regained speech but not quite the words to describe his blessing. "I don’t know what to say. That’s incredible.”
Cowser said he had been playing shallow to try to cut off the tying run on a base hit, and given the depth of the outfield in Denver, had decided that with a ball over his head he'd just have to "get [my] head down and go." There wasn't much time to think about his leap or its timing, just an instinctive and correct read on the fly ball he had never stopped tracking. A lovely and stunning piece of defense, good enough to warrant his calling it "a walk-off on the road."
"So, that stinks," McCarthy said. "But I respect it."
Given the degree of difficulty and the game situation, it's not hard to put this among the elite catches of all time. If the game were more important, it'd be near the top. But what's this? Don't look now, but the Orioles have won four straight, eight of 10, are .500 for the first time since April, and are just half a game out of the wild card. If Baltimore's season comes down to 162, remember this catch. Not that it'll be forgettable in any future.
