Orioles fall to Rays, 10-3, in rain-filled game two of Saturday’s twin bill

Game two of Saturday’s doubleheader didn’t quite go as well as the first one did for the Orioles against the Rays. After a win earlier in the day, the Birds struggled to get much going and snapped their short-but-sweet four game winning streak.

Below, the details of a tough 10-3 loss that featured a lot of bad weather and rough pitching performances.

The recap

The Rays wasted little time getting on the board in the top of the first against Orioles starter Alex Cobb. With one out, C.J. Cron took a Cobb curveball and hit it well over the centerfield wall, giving the Rays a quick 1-0 lead. They gained the early momentum, but Trey Mancini made sure that the Orioles wouldn’t stay off the board for long.

Just two pitches into Matt Andriese’s night, Boom-Boom crushed a leadoff home run to left-center, his fifth of the season that was a no-doubter off the bat. The Birds couldn’t cash in and get the lead, but the round-tripper was good enough to tie the game at one after a full inning of play.

The Rays scooted a couple of runs across the board early against Cobb courtesy of a little bit of small-ball. In the second, it was a Daniel Robinson grounder that scored Brad Miller, who led the inning off with a triple to left. That made it 2-1, and as the Orioles offense struggled to sprint out of the gate after the Mancini home run, the Rays capitalized in a third inning that very easily could have been a disaster.

After Johnny Field and Denard Span led off the inning with two singles, Cron hit a ball that could have been turned for a double play to Jace Peterson at third base. He wasn’t able to make the play, an error that set up the bases loaded with nobody out for Cobb to find a way to limit the damage. Fortunately, courtesy of the always-reliable 6-4-3 double play, he was able to do just that.

Joey Wendle hit a ball to center that drove in a run on a sacrifice fly, but Cobb was able to include a Wilson Ramos GIDP to end the threat and limit the Rays lead to 3-1 after three.

From there, Brad Miller homered to lead off the fourth inning and not much would go in the Orioles favor. Andriese only went three innings, but he and Sergio Romo settled down the offense and both were able to keep the Orioles off balance for the next several innings. After the initial Mancini leadoff home run, the Birds went hitless over the next five not-so-dry innings.

In the top of the sixth with two outs for the Rays (and not much going in the Orioles direction), the skies opened up for good and forced the tarp out onto the field for the major extended delay of the night. It lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, just enough time to apparently bring some life to the Orioles’ bats.

After Jimmy Yacabonis got the last out of the sixth, Caleb Joseph started the bottom half of the inning with a leadoff double to generate some momentum from the bottom of the order. That set up Mancini to do more Mancini things — aka single up the middle to score Joseph and cut the Tampa Bay lead to just two runs.

Old friend Chaz Roe took the hill after the Mancini single and promptly allowed a double to Adam Jones, an at-bat that placed Mancini at third to later score on a Jonathan Schoop groundout. It didn’t end up being an unbelievably explosive inning for the O’s, but it was good enough to get them within one run after six full.

Unfortunately, that’s about where the doubleheader magic stopped on this night.

The Rays pushed across a run in the seventh on a throwing error, but the wheels really began to fall off in the eighth inning. After Pedro Araujo walked Daniel Robertson with one out, he surrendered an RBI double to Mallex Smith to give Tampa Bay a 6-3 lead. A stolen base, two walks and a hit-by-pitch from Araujo later, the Rays were able to plate another to move their advantage to four runs and really run away with the game.

With the Orioles offense unable to produce in the final three innings, Tampa Bay added three more in the ninth for good measure against Mike Wright Jr. Smith tripled to drive in two, Carlos Gomez singled to give the Rays their 10th run of the night and that was about all she wrote.

The Birds went quietly in the ninth and dropped the second game of the doubleheader, 10-3. Not a great night at the park, but it did account for the first loss since Tuesday. Silver linings!

The two teams will be back in action tomorrow for a 1:05 Sunday first pitch to close out the series.