Warning, this article contains a minor spoiler for Wednesday night’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.
Let us explain.
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, which Rutschman promptly punished with a 405-foot dinger to end the game.
Rutschman hitting a walk-off homer wasn’t too wild a story, as he has already shown himself to be very good at baseball. In his postgame interview, however, Rutschman told MASN this wasn’t just his first MLB walk-off homer. It was 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’s played — he was good enough in high school to get 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 lead characters Gregory Eddie, a Baltimore native, found himself standing near a fellow Orioles fan who hadn’t been able to check the last 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 only 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 ever 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 now hitting a dominant .373/.467/.627 with four homers and nine RBI. 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 both fans and hit sitcoms, apparently.
