TAMPA \u2013 The Rays and Orioles entered play tonight as two of the hotter teams in baseball. The Florida heat only added to their rising temperatures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay had won 18 of their last 25 and were on the heels of a three-game sweep of the New York Mets. The Orioles went 15-10 over that same stretch, 11-4 in their last 15, and were fresh off a three-game sweep of the Angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Something had to give.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tonight, it was the O\u2019s starting pitching that gave in a 7-1 loss. The pillar of their recent stretch of success was anything but.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay struck early and they struck often. On Zach Eflin\u2019s fourth pitch of the game, Josh Lowe skied a ball to right field that found some outfield seats. At 334 feet with a 97.9 mph exit velocity, it was hit just well enough to get out of the ballpark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ball was only a home run at Steinbrenner Field.\u00a0Even the park it was modeled after, Yankee Stadium, would\u2019ve kept the ball in front of\u00a0its short porch. Emblematic of the kind of roll the Rays have been on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eflin typically pitches to contact, but this contact early on had eyes. Through his first three innings of work, the right-hander allowed three runs on eight hits, four of which were over the 95 mph hard-hit threshold. But the second and third runs were on hits with 32.3 mph and 82.3 mph exit velos, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Just probably location, right,” Tony Mansolino said. “It seemed like he was kind of yanking some stuff … I think when Ef’s really good, it’s kind of location-based. And tonight, he just didn’t have his best location.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the first inning, the short porch in right tooketh away. But to start the fourth, it gaveth. Adley Rutschman skied a ball to right that, much like Lowe\u2019s fly ball, only would\u2019ve been a home run in one of the majors’\u00a030 ballparks. Luckily for Rutschman, he was in that one ballpark. His solo shot cut the Rays\u2019 lead to 3-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I hit it hard, didn\u2019t know how high it was going to be because I hit it pretty hard off the bat, but I guess hit the ball hard and let the good things happen,” Rutschman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bottom of the frame, though, didn\u2019t bring any batted-ball luck. Former Maryland Terrapin Brandon Lowe connected on an Eflin changeup and drove it 426 feet to right-center field. That one was a home run in just about every ballpark, and it pushed the\u00a0Rays’ advantage to 5-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My shapes weren\u2019t typical today, so it\u2019s kind of hard to locate when I expect them to do something and they weren\u2019t doing it,” Eflin said of his performance. “And they did a good job battling me. They had a good game plan coming in. They had a lot of first-pitch hits, playing small ball with a couple of bunts and stuff. So hats off to those guys.”<\/p>\n
Soft contact or weak contact, Tampa Bay just found a way to put runs on the board. They poured it on in the fifth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay\u2019s hitters started the inning with a single and back-to-back doubles to push their lead to 7-1. Eflin is known for living in the zone, but tonight he was catching too much of it. His 12 hits allowed are the most in his big league career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The heat didn’t help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There for a batter or two, I had some sweaty hands,” Eflin mentioned. “I just had to grab some rosin and ended up bringing a little pocket towel out there for the next inning. I didn\u2019t, honestly, really even use it too much the next inning. But yeah, I just had some sweaty hands there for a couple batters.”<\/p>\n
The former Ray’s day was done after those five innings, a tough outing after allowing just four earned runs in his previous three starts combined.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There wasn\u2019t much offense to speak of off Baltimore\u2019s bats. Outside of Rutschman\u2019s home run, there were a few hits sprayed here and there, but not many true scoring threats. A 7-1 game after five innings felt out of hand relatively quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It felt that way, in large part, because of the dominance of Rays starter Ryan Pepiot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The headliner of Tampa’s Tyler Glasnow trade, Pepiot was masterful on this muggy night in Florida. The right-hander cruised through eight innings and allowed just one run on four hits, striking out 11 along the way. His fastball-changeup combination was clicking all night, accounting for nine of his 11 strikeouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The fastball looked like he had a lot of life, right,” Mansolino said of Pepiot. “Some of the swings {Ram\u00f3n) Ur\u00edas took, you never see him take swings like that, so probably tip your cap to the pitcher right there. Then the changeup was really good as well … I thought we battled, he was just better.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
He left the O’s bats stifled and silent, fading quietly into the Tampa night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s got a really good fastball, and changeup’s got a lot of depth to it for lefties, complements that cutter-slider a bit,” Rutschman said. “So, just does a good job of working ahead and using the strength.”<\/p>\n
But this series is a marathon, not a sprint. The Orioles are still in the midst of their stretch of 16 consecutive days with a game, and this week is their biggest test yet. Four games against the Rays followed by three against the Yankees in New York. There’s a long way to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s as advertised,” Mansolino said of the Rays. “It\u2019s contact, it\u2019s speed, there\u2019s some home runs in there, too. It\u2019s pitching, it\u2019s defense. It\u2019s a really good team right now. They\u2019re playing great.”<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, Dean Kremer will take the mound against Zack Littell, who has completed six innings of work in all but three of his 14 starts this year. Baltimore’s offense will search for some more success.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2013 The Rays and Orioles entered play tonight as two of the hotter teams in baseball. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[1079,47,5,1129,4,125,579,297,2550,68,2551,2549,96],"class_list":{"0":"post-109863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-adley-rutschman","9":"tag-baltimore-orioles","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-brendan-mortensen","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-orioles","14":"tag-orioles-featured","15":"tag-rays","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabayrays","20":"tag-zach-eflin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114697191041316103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}