B.J. Upton’s four RBIs helps Tampa Bay Rays defeat Baltimore Orioles 5-3 – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays’ centre-fielder B.J. Upton was outstanding throughout the game as he hit four RBIs in the Rays’ 5-3 victory against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park in Baltimore on May 8.
Upton expressed his excitement as, “I like hitting here because I normally have a lot of family and friends come in. This is a good field for me, it's kind of close to home and I like playing here.”
The Orioles swept the three-game series to the Rays at the start of the season, but now Tampa Bay overcame including a new record as well. The Rays set a franchise record of winning back-to-back eight games in a single season. Johnny Damon said, “We won
three against them, they won three against us. That's about all the payback you can get. They caught us at the right time at our place and we caught them at the right time here.”
The scoreboard seemed empty after first three innings. The fourth inning was full of scoring for both teams. Damon hit a shot for a double and posted two runs on the scoop of Evan Longoria. The third run was taken by the Rays on the double of Matt Joyce.
For the Orioles, Luke Scott and Adam Jones added two run in the fourth inning to move the scorecard 3-2. Matt Wieters drove a two-run double but was unable to post a single run.
Scott said of the game, “Things haven't gone our way -- yet. We're definitely underachieving. We can do a whole lot better than we're doing. It will happen. It's a long season.”
Ben Zobrist made a single and Joyce contributed equally by striking a ground-rule double. Upton added another run in the lead by hitting a shot towards the middle-field position. Derrek Lee struck a one-run homer in the fifth inning to cut the Orioles’ deficit
5-3. The rest of the four innings were scoreless. The batters of both teams did not perform well in the last innings and left their teams depending on pitchers only.
After this persuasive victory, Zobrist said, “We're playing good baseball right now. We're hitting the ball really well, scoring some runs, which is nice. It keeps things going, everybody gets excited when you're scoring a lot of runs.”
The Rays’ starter Wade Davis was little bit shaky as he permitted three runs on four hits including three earned runs in his five inning pitches. He gave away five walks with just three strike-outs. The relievers were impressive throughout the game as they
allowed no score in their three combined innings pitched.
On the other side, the Orioles’ starter Brad Bergesen was too expensive as he pitched four innings and gave away five runs on nine hits with five earned runs.
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