Tampa Bay Rays lose to Baltimore Orioles 3-4 – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays lost to Baltimore Orioles 3-4 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland on Friday, May 11 in the opening game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Tampa Bay scored first, thanks to Sean Rodriguez who grounded into double play to help Luke Scott score the first run in the second inning. The Orioles responded immediately as Adam Jones homered to the left to level the score.
Nick Markakis hit a towering home run in the sixth to make the score 2-3 but it was Nick Johnson who decided the outcome of the game as he hit the winning home run in the seventh to close out the contest.
"I knew it was going to be a bang-bang," Orioles’ catcher Wieters said. "I wasn't sure he was going to slide or come in strong, and I made sure to hold onto the ball."
"He's definitely bigger than me. His foot was in front of the bag so I was like I got nowhere to slide, I got to get him, try to see if I could knock it loose. He held on to it. Credit to him," Rodriguez said.
"It felt great," he said. "I was seeing the ball pretty well tonight."
Baltimore and the Rays were tied at the top of the division with 20-12 going into this series. However, with their win against the Rays on Friday evening, the Orioles became the leading team in the American League and it will be interesting to see if Buck
Showalter and his men can stay up there throughout the season to make it to the playoffs.
In some ways, the win will be of great importance for the Orioles after the hammering they received from Texas Rangers in a four match series. The Rangers dominated them in almost all departments to win three out of four games. Of course, the Orioles will
be very feeling a lot more confident about themselves and it should not be surprise to anyone if they go on to win the series against the Rays.
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