Hit sitcom 'Abbott Elementary' predicts Orioles C Adley Rutschman's 1st walk-off homer
Warning, this article contains a minor spoiler for Wednesday's episode of "Abbott Elementary."
You might have already heard of "The Simpsons predictions" meme, but Emmy Award-winning sitcom "Abbott Elementary" just showed off its own fortune-telling abilities.
Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman, one of MLB's brightest rising stars, hit a walk-off homer Thursday against the Oakland Athletics. With the score tied 7-7 at Camden Yards, A's reliever Trevor May left a 93.2 mph fastball near the middle of the zone, and Rutschman promptly punished it with a 405-foot dinger to end the game.
Whatta rutschMAN pic.twitter.com/19JkUnUSeS
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 13, 2023
Rutschman hitting a walk-off homer wasn't too wild of a story, as he has already shown himself to be very good at baseball. In his postgame interview Thursday, however, Rutschman told MASN that this was not just his first MLB walk-off homer but the first walk-off home run of his entire baseball career, from Little League to high school to college to the minor leagues.
Given that Rutschman has been a star at pretty much every level — he was good enough in high school to be drafted, then good enough at Oregon State to be drafted first overall — that was pretty surprising to some people.
The walk-off homer was even more surprising to people who had watched the previous night's episode of "Abbott Elementary" on ABC.
In that episode, as noted by The Athletic, one of the main characters, Gregory Eddie, a Baltimore native, found himself standing near a fellow Orioles fan who hadn't been able to check the previous night's score. He took it upon himself to deliver a recap:
“5-3 O's. Adley Rutschman hit an opposite-field, walk-off homer, and Cedric Mullins was a single shy of the cycle.”
Was that a perfect prophecy? Absolutely not. The Orioles won 8-7, Rutschman's homer was pulled instead of opposite-field, and Mullins was 1-for-4 with a single, rather than a single shy of the cycle.
Still, when a show says a guy hit a walk-off home run, and then he hits his first walk-off home run less than 24 hours later, it's going to feel a little spooky (and let's not act like some past Simpsons predictions haven't been similarly flawed).
As of Thursday, Rustchman is hitting a dominant .373/.467/.627 with four homers and nine RBIs. A former No. 1 overall prospect and the runner-up for last year's American League Rookie of the Year award, he was expected to take a major leap this year.
So far, he is delivering on those expectations — from fans and hit sitcoms, apparently.
