From Mother Nature to God, how else was this script going to end?

The script, the Orioles kept talking about the script. The script that they helped author. The script that seemingly came from above.

"Jeter," Orioles closer Zach Britton proclaimed, "has got God on speed dial."

Blasphemy? Perhaps. But the sequence of events in Derek Jeter’s final game at Yankee Stadium certainly seemed heaven-sent.

Start with the skies that cleared at game time, defying the weather forecast after a day of rain.

Conclude with Jeter’s walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning, which became possible only because Yankees closer David Robertson had blown a three-run lead.

"Best script I’ve ever seen," Orioles center fielder Adam Jones said. "Like a fairy-tale movie."

Jose Pirela, in his 12th major-league at-bat, started the game-winning rally with a single. Brett Gardner sacrificed pinch-runner Antoan Richardson to second. And then Jeter came to the plate.

Jeter, who already had produced an RBI double in the first inning and an RBI fielder’s choice in the seventh.

Jeter, who admitted to being an emotional wreck the entire night, right up until his final at-bat, when he said his overriding thought was, "Don’t cry."

Jeter, who surprisingly remained in the game for the entire top of the ninth rather than get removed by manager Joe Girardi for one last ovation with a 5-2 lead.

Jones crushed a two-run homer with one out to pull the Orioles within one run. Steve Pearce hit a solo shot with two outs to tie it.

Robertson then retired J.J. Hardy to end the inning, ensuring that Jeter — who was due to hit third in the bottom half — would bat again.

"It was already written," Orioles catcher Nick Hundley said. "Could it have happened any other way?"

Jeter, mind you, hadn’t delivered a walk-off hit since Aug. 13, 2007. He entered the game with the fifth-lowest OPS of the 147 hitters who had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. But he had been reasonably hot of late, batting .333 with six RBI in his last eight games.

Not bad, considering that during this farewell season, Jeter said he felt as if he was almost watching his own funeral — or, at least, the end of his baseball-playing life. 

Now, he had one last breath.

First base was open. An intentional walk would have violated baseball etiquette as well as logic, but Hardy said it crossed his mind.

"We should walk him here," Hardy remembered thinking. "He’s going to get a hit."

Orioles manager Buck Showalter said the only intentional walk he considered beforehand was to the hitter ahead of Jeter if the score was one-sided late in the game.

He wasn’t going to walk Jeter to set up a matchup between right-hander Evan Meek and the left-handed hitting Brian McCann.

"Derek would only want you to play the game the way the game is supposed to be played," Showalter said.

So, Meek inherited the moment, a moment he would later describe as "bigger than me."

Jeter’s parents, sister, nephew and girlfriend had moved from a luxury box to the first row. The rest of the crowd of 48,613 stood, chanted, pleaded.

The whole night it had been like this, loud like the old Yankee Stadium used to be loud, full like the old Yankee Stadium used to be full.

And now, the script was nearly complete.

Meek threw an 86-mph changeup. Jeter slashed a trademark inside-out single to right field, rounded first, then looked toward home.

Richardson beat the throw from right fielder Nick Markakis. Jeter raised both fists in celebration, screamed in delight. The Yankees poured out of the dugout and mobbed him as if they had just won the seventh game of the World Series, which of course they stand no chance of doing in this lost season.

Jeter hugged each of his teammates, his coaches, Girardi. The rest of the Yankees’ Core Four — Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada — walked onto the field and waited patiently to greet him, along with other ghosts from the Yankees’ past, Joe Torre, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Gerald Williams.

The Orioles stood on the top of their dugout steps, applauding. Jeter strolled out to the infield, pointed to them in appreciation. Then he returned to shortstop and kneeled in prayer the way he does before every game.

"I basically just said, ‘Thank you,’" he said. "This is all I ever wanted to do."

He got up and walked back toward the dugout, tipping his cap repeatedly, acknowledging various sections of the crowd.

Meredith Marakovits, the reporter for the Yankees’ YES Network, interviewed Jeter on the field, with his words broadcast throughout the park.

"I don’t know how I played this game," he said. "My first at-bat, I forgot my elbow guard. I was throwing balls away. I was giving signs to (Stephen) Drew at second base when no one was on second base. I was all messed up."

He said in his news conference afterward that he nearly broke down a couple of times, and even thought to himself, "Joe, get me out of here before I do something that costs us this game."

But of course, he didn’t cost the Yankees the game.

"Funny how things change," Jeter said, as if it all happened by accident.

As if he didn’t really have God on speed dial.