Andrew Stevenson was on third base for the Washington Nationals with two outs and slugger Juan Soto coming up to face Jorge López in the always-eventful fifth inning for the Orioles starter.
Instead of tempt fate with López, Hyde called on reliever Paul Fry, who needed just one pitch for Soto to chop to third. From there, the Orioles bullpen held and their lead built to an eventual 6-1 win over the Nationals before an announced 17,022 Friday night at Camden Yards.
Managing the Orioles (32-64) on this march to 100 losses means sometimes following your gut in moments like that, and other times following the data, and the erratic results that come from an erratic bullpen make it hard to judge whether those calls were correct.