Orioles' Jackson Holliday, Pete Alonso homer in 7-4 victory over Tigers

Matt Weyrich, The Baltimore Sun on May 22, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BALTIMORE — There’s no place like home.

Jackson Holliday made his Camden Yards season debut Friday and greeted Orioles fans with a go-ahead, two-run home run in the fourth inning to help lead Baltimore to a 7-4 win over the Detroit Tigers. Holliday, who reached base three times and scored twice, put Baltimore (22-29) ahead for good with his blast off former Oriole Jack Flaherty.

The ball landed just inside the left-field foul pole and traveled 337 feet, the shortest home run hit to left field at Camden Yards since the start of the Statcast era (2015) and tied for the ballpark’s third shortest to any direction. Statcast determined it still would’ve been a home run in 12 stadiums across MLB.

Holliday, 22, returned from the injured list Monday during the Orioles’ road series against the Tampa Bay Rays and he went 0 for 4 across two games. He started at second base Friday, batting ninth for just his second start of the season after he missed the first two months recovering from a fractured hamate bone in his right hand.

His home run chased Flaherty from the game, and he left with six runs (three earned), eight hits, zero walks and seven strikeouts charged against him. Pete Alonso also launched his 10th homer of the season — that one good for 391 feet — to drive in three runs in the third, and Flaherty balked in a run one batter before Holliday in the fourth.

Chris Bassitt received the win despite only pitching 4 1/3 innings. Opener Keegan Akin allowed a homer to rookie Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle on the first pitch of the game and handed the ball over to Bassitt to start the second. The veteran right-hander allowed three runs on six hits and four strikeouts with zero walks.

The Orioles’ propensity to give up runs in innings that immediately follow runs of their own reared its head once again, but the home runs by Holliday and Alonso were enough to keep the Tigers from clawing back. The offense finished with 14 hits, including six that went for extra bases. Gunnar Henderson had another three-hit day as he continues to show signs of turning his season around.

With rain threatening to end the game early all night, Orioles manager Craig Albernaz was aggressive in both his pinch-hitting and reliever usage. He pinch-hit Tyler O’Neill for Colton Cowser with one out and nobody on in the fifth to get a platoon advantage and used de facto closer Rico Garcia to get the final two outs of the sixth.

Yennier Cano and Tyler Wells followed Garcia with scoreless frames before Albernaz turned to Anthony Nunez for the ninth. The rookie right-hander locked down his third save of the season with a 1-2-3 outing, bouncing back from his blown save in Wednesday’s loss to the Rays.

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