J-Rod brings 'No Fly Zone' back to Baltimore for second time

BALTIMORE -- Julio Rodríguez’s “No Fly Zone” appears to have a home away from home.

For the second time in his young career, the Mariners’ star center fielder made an incredible home-run robbery in Baltimore’s spacious Camden Yards, yanking a projected 406-foot flyball from Anthony Santander out of the air after it had seemingly cleared the wall in straightaway center on Friday night.

Racing back with his right shoulder to the wall, Rodríguez checked for the fence just once as he reached the warning track before making a massive leap, leveraging his right shoulder against the top padding to help extend his glove hand beyond the fence to bring the ball back.

Rodríguez then crossed his wrists and pounded them against each other three times while facing the plate, his trademark gesture to the “No Fly Zone” moniker he coined, while Santander sported a good-natured grin of game recognizing game -- all while boos rained down.

“As soon as he hit the ball, I knew he hit it pretty hard and that it was going to be kind of close to the wall,” Rodríguez said. “So I got back as soon as I could to have time to jump. Then I saw the ball kind of die, and I was, 'Oh, I gotta get this one.' And I just jumped up as high as I could.”

Santander and the Orioles wound up getting the last laugh, as they pounded a homer and five extra-base hits to sink Seattle to a 9-2 loss, which began its longest road trip of the year by games (10) and cities (three) and second-longest in miles covered (5,965).

“He was telling me before the game, 'Hey, don't be doing some stuff out there,’” Rodríguez said of Santander, who has a career seven homers against the Mariners. “And I was like, ‘I can't guarantee you anything.'"

Last year, Rodríguez made his first career robbery in Baltimore when bringing back a projected 403-foot flyball from Ryan O’Hearn, on June 24. His only other robbery was the fake-out against Fernando Tatis Jr. at T-Mobile Park on Aug. 8, when he fooled everyone into thinking that the ball cleared the wall before revealing it in his glove with a Cheshire Cat grin after Tatis began his home-run trot.

So, all told, two of Rodríguez’s three robberies have taken place at a venue where he’s played in just seven games.

“It's fun, I feel like this is a ballpark that a lot of center fielders or outfielders like me love to play,” Rodríguez said, “just because you can make these types of plays.”

Which one was harder to corral, Friday’s or last year’s?

“They were different,” Rodríguez said. “This one was higher, but the other one was I had to run a little bit more.”

Rodríguez might be in the midst of an inconsistent season at the plate, but his glove has remained among MLB’s elite. Entering Friday, he was tied with Pittsburgh's Michael A. Taylor for the lead among center fielders with five outs above average. Last year, he ranked fourth with 12. And since his rookie season in 2022, he leads the position, with 25.

This all from a player who didn’t transition to the premium position until his final two months in the Minors in 2021. His athletic morph there has been well-chronicled, but plays like Friday’s underscore how far he’s come.

Rodríguez was a finalist for a Gold Glove Award last year but fell short of Toronto’s Kevin Kiermaier, who won his fourth. Rodríguez has made it no secret that he wants to win that award as much as any individual accolade.

“I always take a lot of pride in that, because it's something that I had to earn -- I had to really, really earn,” Rodríguez said. “And that was basically because of my hard work and my dedication by not letting anybody tell me what I can and cannot do. So I feel I took a lot of pride in that. And that's something that's one of my favorite parts of my game now.”

At the plate on Friday, Rodríguez went just 1-for-4 as he and the Mariners played from behind virtually all night.

They took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but the O’s quickly responded for a five-spot off Bryce Miller in the bottom of the frame, marking the most runs he’d surrendered in nine starts this year -- let alone one inning.

In their fifth try, the Mariners fell short of advancing to a season-high five games above .500.