Rays' offence buries Orioles 8-1
The Baltimore Orioles were in rare form before the All-Star break with their four-game sweep of the Texas Rangers having been their first since the mid-90s. But are back to their typical play, after they were swept by the Toronto Blue Jays over the weekend and dropped Monday's series-opener to the Tampa Bay Rays 8-1. The Rays improved to 56-36, while the Orioles still haven't eclipsed the 30-win mark, falling to 29-63 on the season. It was the Rays' 10th win in 13 games, witnessed by a small audience of just over 12,000 at Camden Yards.
Tampa Bay came off of a rough weekend up in New York, facing emotionally-charged crowds honoring the memory of late broadcaster Bob Sheppard and the Yankees' owner since 1973, George Steinbrenner. The Rays couldn't stymie the charge of the Yankees' offence and dropped two of three in the Bronx, despite having the best away record in the game at 30-16.
"You go to New York and there's a lot of emotion. Then you come here and it's not nearly as ... vibrant," said Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon. "We talked about that. I felt we came out ready to go. Our pregame was good."
The Rays' rookie pitcher Wade Davis only gave up one run in eight innings of work, allowing seven hits and one walk while fanning three. Davis' record improved to 7-9 on the year, but he's pitched particularly well against the Orioles in his short career with a 3-0 record and a 0.75 ERA. It was his second straight win after losing five in a row.
"I'd say I've found some things to improve on -- just recognizing various situations and stopping the bad things when they're coming," he said.
Baltimore pitching woes
Orioles starter Chris Tillman was not as efficient, allowing all eight runs along with seven hits, four walks and a hit batsman in just 2 and 2/3 innings.
"I think the main thing is the command. It just wasn't there tonight," Tillman said.
It wasn't the performance the Orioles wanted or expected from Tillman after he threw 7 and 1/3 innings and two hits against the Rangers. Interim manager Juan Samuel was not shy with his comments after the game.
"Tillman was missing his spots tremendously," interim manager Juan Samuel said. "His command was very, very bad. He was a different guy than what we saw in Texas. We were hoping that he would build on that, but we did not see that tonight."
Quick offence stole the show
The second and third innings were all the Rays needed to steal the game early on. Right fielder Ben Zobrist hit a ground rule double scoring the second inning's only run, but the third inning saw the real fireworks. With third baseman Evan Longoria on second after a single and first baseman Carlos Pena at first after getting hit by a pitch, right fielder Matt Joyce smacked a double to deep right to get Longoria home. Catcher John Jaso and left fielder B.J. Upton drew back to back walks, with Upton's sending Pena home. Shortstop Jason Bartlett had a two-run single before second baseman Sean Rodriguez registered the first out of the inning, a sacrifice bunt.
Zobrist popped out to third, but the Rays still had runs to score even with two outs. Center fielder Carl Crawford tripled to center for an RBI, and after pitcher Matt Albers relieved Tillman, Longoria's second single of the inning brought home the final run.
"The third inning was kind of magical," Maddon said. "We did a lot of good things there. We kept the good at-bats coming one after another. There was some nice execution aspects. It was fun to watch."
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