The Baltimore Orioles picked up their 13th win of the season on Saturday night – a 9-7 victory over the Kansas City Royals that helped give Craig Kimbrel save No. 422 of his career.
Kimbrel tied Billy Wagner for seventh on the all-time MLB saves list, which made what Colton Cowser did with the milestone baseball a bit off-putting. Cowser made the final out in the win and he threw the ball behind him and into the Kauffman Stadium fountains.
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Baltimore Orioles’ Ramon Urias and Colton Cowser celebrate after their game against the Royals on Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
“I just yeeted it behind me,” he explained to reporters after the game, via MLB.com.
“Right when I threw it, I said, ‘Craig has a lot of saves, that one might have been important. I literally told [his teammate Cedric Mullins] right whenever, ‘I might have messed up.’ And it turns out I did. We got the ball back, though.”
Cowser tried to find the ball after the game. There were two balls in the bottom of the fountains, according to MLB.com. One was older, which made determining which ball should have gone to Kimbrel in the first place easy. A stadium worker eventually retrieved the baseball and dropped it off in the visitors’ clubhouse.
Baltimore Orioles catcher James McCann and relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel high-five after the Royals game, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Kansas City. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
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Kimbrel wasn’t upset at all, despite some other Orioles players razzing Cowser about it.
“It’s fine, it doesn’t bother me none. We’ll see what the authenticators think when we talk to them here in a little bit,” he said. “There was some hurt, I could tell that he was a little distraught about it, and I told him not to worry about it too much and not to lose sleep.”
Kimbrel has five saves to go along with a 1.00 ERA and 14 strikeouts.
Next on the list is John Franco, who is sixth all time with 424 saves. Kenley Jansen, now of the Boston Red Sox, is fifth with 425 saves.
Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel throws during the ninth inning against the Royals on Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Kansas City. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
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Mariano Rivera is the all-time saves leader with 652. Trevor Hoffman is second with 601.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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