The eighth inning in Saturday’s may not have been pretty, but the Rays picked up their second win of the series against the Orioles by a score of 5-4, behind solid pitching and timely home runs to earn the victory. Credit where it’s due, Erik Bedard pitched seven solid, efficient innings and earned the win for Tampa Bay. Tagged with the loss, Wei-Yin Chen was knocked out of the game in the fourth inning. Jake McGee stopped a late charge by the Orioles and was credited with a four out save — his third in as many opportunities.
Desmond Jennings got things started early, hitting a leadoff home run, and setting the tone for the rest of the game. That particular homer was the 11th relinquished by Chen, who ended the day with numbers 12 and 13 under his belt. Of those 13 homers, nine have come from the leadoff spot. Tampa Bay struck again in the second inning, after Sean Rodriguez hit a one out single to left to give the Rays a baserunner. With the well primed, Logan Forsythe finally hit his first home run as a Ray, crushing a misplaced pitch to center, and giving the Rays a 3-0 lead.
Forsythe, once again, reached safely in the fourth on a leadoff single, before Kevin Kiermaier went yard to right, extending the lead to five. Chen faced one more batter (Jennings, BB) before Brad Brach came on in relief. Brach ended the inning without yielding any more runs.
Bedard was excellent most of the day, blanking the Orioles until the sixth inning when Nick Markakis was able to pull in his hands and turn on a well located, inside curveball that was down and off the plate.
Frenchy owned the O’s up to that point — tossing an efficient 68 pitches through six (only 14 balls), while striking out six. Bedard changed speeds and locations, keeping the Orioles hitters off balance, and coaxing weak contact all along.
He, however, encountered day ending trouble in the bottom of the eighth. JJ Hardy led off the inning off with a base hit to right before Manny Machado drove him in on a home run off of the foul pole in left. A game of inches — had Machado pulled to ball a few inches to the left, we’d be talking about a foul ball instead.
The Rays made a valiant effort to tag on an insurance run when Ben Zobrist hit a one out triple to deep right. The next batter, Brandon Guyer, hit a ball hard, but right at a drawn in Jonathan Schoop to bring up Evan Longoria. But Longo struck out looking on a center-center change up to end the inning.
Grant Balfour, who has been pitching better of late, came on in relief and quickly induced a fly ball from Jonathan Schoop. But Delmon Young took him to center on a pinch hit single, bringing up the top of the order. For Delmonster, he’s now 7-13 in pinch hit opportunities. Markakis was next, singling to right and moving Young to second. The tension was high, and the fans at Camden yards were on their feet. Steve Pearce was next in the box, but the maligned reliever was able to pop him up for the second out of the inning.
Maddon pulled Balfour in favor of Jake McGee to face the red-hot Adam Jones. A game of inches — Jones hit a seeing eye single just out of the reach of the dive of Logan Forsythe, bringing Young around to score, and cutting the Rays’ lead to one. McGee managed to get an inning ending fly ball out from Nelson Cruz.
McGee came back out in the ninth, and locked down things down with a 1-2-3 inning. Of note; he earned a tip of the cap from Machado, who struck out swinging on an excellent curveball after an extended at-bat.
The Rays were fortunate with their early, timely hits. Baltimore’s relievers shut down the Rays after Chen’s departure, striking out eight while allowing four base runners in 5-2/3 innings — holding Tampa Bay to 0-7 wRISP.
The New What Next
Alex Cobb and the Rays will close out the series against Miguel Gonzalez and the Orioles this afternoon. Cobb is looking for redemption following his last start, and the Rays are looking for the series win. Gonzalez wasn’t very sharp in his last outing against Tampa Bay, lasting only five innings while relinquishing four runs on eight hits, including a pair of homers. The only thing that saved the O’s in that game were the seven runs they scored. Gonzalez is averaging just over 5-1/2 innings pitched per start, and went just five in his last two. You can read about the pitching matchup in our series preview.
Rays 6/29/14 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
Zobrist SS
Joyce LF
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Guyer DH
Forsythe 2B
Molina C
Kiermaier RF
Cobb RHP
Noteworthiness
- The Rays pitchers need 19 strikeouts in the remaining two games in June to set the all time record for strikeouts in a month.
- Marc Topkin writes, “If the Rays have any hope of salvaging this season and making a run at a playoff spot – or even respectability – they have to start winning series to do so. So after they beat the Orioles Saturday to win two of the first three in what became a four-game series due to the makeup of the April 15 rainout, manager Joe Maddon – who almost never says any one game is more important than another – pretty much said today’s game is very important, about as much of a must-win as there can be on June 29 anyway.”
- Your tweet of the day:
Odd #Rays-ism from Sat. game, per Elias: 1st time in team history, 1st in MLB in 11 months to score 5 + win w/ 0 H R RBI from 3-4-5 hitters
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) June 29, 2014