Jul 26, 2025, 02:54 AM ET<\/p>\n
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Zach Neto<\/a> delivered the first walk-off hit of his career in the 10th inning Friday night, but it was the Los Angeles Angels<\/a> shortstop’s improvisational play in the top of the inning that was most responsible for a 3-2<\/a> win over the Seattle Mariners<\/a>.<\/p>\n Angels reliever Ryan Zeferjahn<\/a> walked Cole Young<\/a> to open the 10th, putting two on with no outs for Seattle leadoff man J.P. Crawford<\/a>, who bunted a ball over the head of charging third baseman Kevin Newman<\/a>.<\/p>\n Neto raced to his right, staying a few steps ahead of automatic runner Ben Williamson<\/a>. He fielded the ball and flipped it with his glove hand to Zeferjahn, who barely kept his foot on the third-base bag for a forceout.<\/p>\n Zeferjahn then got Julio Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, who hit solo homers in the first and sixth innings, to fly out and struck out major league home run leader Cal Raleigh<\/a> looking with a 99 mph fastball to preserve a 2-2 tie.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n “We knew he wanted to get the bunt down, and when I saw it go over Newman’s head, I was just trying to make a play,” Neto said. “I knew I beat Williamson down the line, and it was just a matter of getting it out of my glove and in the direction of third base.”<\/p>\n Newman said he felt helpless when he saw Crawford’s bunt sail over his head. He figured the Mariners had just loaded the bases with no outs.<\/p>\n “That’s like the last scenario on your mind,” Newman said. “You’re ready to charge and come down and then to have a ball go up over your head … I mean, he put it in a really great spot. Thank God that Neto’s an athlete and Zef is an athlete, and they were able to make that play like that.”<\/p>\n Newman saw Neto charging toward the ball, but did he have any idea Zeferjahn went behind his back to cover third?<\/p>\n “No clue,” Newman said. “I saw Zach charging, and I’m like, ‘OK, Zach’s got the play in front of him, so there’s no point in me going to third — I’ll just let him take it. And then I see him get the ball and flip it to Zef, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we got the out.’ Awesome.”<\/p>\n Zeferjahn, who improved to 6-3 with the win, said the play changed the complexion of the inning.<\/p>\n “I was struggling a little bit, and that gave me a little bit of confidence to go out there and get the next two guys,” Zeferjahn said. “That’s an unbelievable play by Zach. I think it won us the game.”<\/p>\n Logan O’Hoppe<\/a> opened the bottom of the 10th with a fly ball to deep center that advanced Newman, the automatic runner, to third. LaMonte Wade Jr<\/a>. walked, and Luis Rengifo<\/a> grounded into a fielder’s choice, Newman getting tagged out in a rundown between third and home.<\/p>\n But Neto, with the crowd chanting his name, poked an opposite-field grounder off the glove of the diving Young at second base and into right field to cap his bobblehead night with a game-winning RBI single.<\/p>\n “Yeah, it was pretty special,” Neto said. “I think the baseball gods were on our side tonight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jul 26, 2025, 02:54 AM ET ANAHEIM, Calif. — Zach Neto delivered the first walk-off hit of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-23544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}