Tampa Bay Rays beat Baltimore Orioles 8-4 to top American League East Division – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays used their home conditions absolutely perfectly as they thrashed Baltimore Orioles 8-4 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Sunday, June 3 in the decisive finale of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
With their win against Orioles, Tampa Bay has gone to first place in American League East Division. Both teams were tied at 30-23 going into the finale.
Orioles were the favourites to win the series considering their masterful performance in the second game. However, Joe Maddon and company stuck to their tasks brilliantly and they made the most of scoring opportunities.
Credit must be given to Rays’ starting pitcher Matt Moore who won for the first time since May 1, 2012. He allowed just two runs on seven hits in six plus innings. B.J. Upton also displayed some top quality hitting skills, driving in a two run tie breaking double and the Rays secured an emphatic win against their league rivals.
"A clutch hit," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. "B.J.'s ball down the (left field) line is pretty large right there."
"I'm going to do everything I can to feed off this," Moore said. "It's good to get a win."
"Matt really held it together well. We've been able to hold serve," Maddon said. "We're still on top. The guys who have been out there have been doing a great job. The effort has been fantastic."
Matt Wieters provided Orioles with a perfect start as he homered to left in the first inning to put Moore under immense pressure. Matt Joyce, however, brought Rays back into the contest almost immediately, hitting a sacrifice fly to centre. Ben Zobrist scored a throwing error by Wieters in the sixth and the Rays took a commanding 5-2 lead.
Jose Molina had a safe at first on an error by third baseman Steve Tolleson and Carlos Pena hit a sacrifice fly to centre as the Rays extended their lead to 8-2 in the sixth. Mark Reynolds homered and Wieters added an RBI single to end the game on a strong note for Baltimore but the effort did not prove to be enough.
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