Rays 5, Orioles 0: The clincher

I missed most of this game, except for a couple of brief snatches on the radio, long enough to hear that there were no-doubter home runs hit by Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford. Because it was a Brad Bergesen start, it was over in a blessedly short 2:08, because if there's anything worse than a 5-0 loss, it's a 3+ hour 5-0 loss. Bergy gave up five runs in five innings, his third time getting lit up by Tampa this season. I guess they've just got his number.

While there were not any errors charged against the Orioles in the game, there were at least enough shenanigans on a John Jaso triple for someone in the game thread to show some anger. Still, even two solo home runs would have been enough to win this game when the offense got nothing going against David Price, who went eight innings, giving up six hits, walking none and striking out eight.

Julio Lugo got ejected for tossing his bat and helmet after a second called strikeout in the game. I echo the commenter who wondered if we could appeal to make a suspension permanent.

There was a Pedro Viola sighting later in the game and he made it through one perfect inning while striking out two batters, so hey, good for him. At least he didn't make the garbage time even more garbage.

When the game was over, I'm presuming the Rays popped those champagne corks, because they've now qualified for at least the wild card. New York won tonight, so the Rays maintain a .5 game advantage in the AL East standings.

This thread mostly exists because I was starting to feel bad about there being 73 posts in the game thread and like half of them were about Glee.

In tomorrow's prophylactic game of the series, Jeff Niemann takes the mound for the Rays against Kevin Millwood for the O's. Ugh.