Eflin leaves injured and Rays batter Orioles in deflating 11-3 loss

The Baltimore starter only lasted one inning, Tampa collected 14 hits and the O’s offense came back to earth as the Rays evened the series.

Starter Zach Eflin left injured after one inning, the bats once again fell silent and the Orioles followed up their record night with a disappointing 11-3 loss to the Rays.

Coming off the high of a 22-8 win on Friday, Saturday’s game fell flat quickly as the O’s seemed out of it after the 1st inning. Eflin was laboring from the first batter of the game, as Josh Lowe led off the inning with a double slashed into the left-center gap. Brandon Lowe then got enough of an Eflin sinker, dropping a soft line drive into center to score Josh from second and give Tampa a 1-0 lead.

Two batters later, Jonathan Aranda provided the first of several gut punches delivered to this Orioles pitching staff. With Brandon Lowe on first, Aranda jumped all over a sinker left in the middle of the plate and blasted it a ludicrous 467 feet over the right-center wall. The ball was hit so hard and so far that RF Ramón Laureano didn’t even move as it sailed over the fences separating the right-center stands from Eutaw Street.

The Rays then began to torment the Orioles with their small-ball prowess. Junior Caminero poked a sweeper away into centerfield to start another Rays rally. Caminero then broke for second, allowing Jake Magnum to slap a single through Gunner Henderson’s vacated spot at SS and give Tampa runners at first and third. Speedster Chandler Simpson brought home Caminero after grounding into a 3-6 FC.

Trailing 4-0, the Orioles tried to get their own rally going in the bottom of the 1st. Jackson Holliday led off the O’s half of the inning with a sharp single to left field. Three batters later, Holliday stole second and Ryan O’Hearn worked a 3-2 fastball. Laureano couldn’t cut into the Tampa lead, however, grounding out to short to end the inning.

Hope quickly dwindled from there. Eflin did not come out for the 2nd, with the Orioles quickly reporting that their starter left the game due to lower back tightness. While the O’s would never admit this, it felt like the Efflin injury took any comeback spirit out of their sails.

Scott Blewett relieved the Orioles starter and kept Baltimore in the game with scoreless innings in the 2nd and 3rd and three Ks. However, walks began to bite the Orioles’ bullpen in the 4th as the Rays blew the game open. Simpson led off the inning with a 3-2 walk, stole second and moved to third on an errant throw by catcher Chadwick Tromp. Taylor Walls then launched a sac fly to CF to put the Rays up 5-0.

In the same inning, the Rays ignited a two-out rally that started on a Josh Lowe single off the right field scoreboard and was kept alive by a Brandon Lowe 10-pitch walk. Failing to put Brandon away meant Yandy Díaz got to hit with two runners on, and he ended Blewett’s afternoon by tattooing a slider and sending a three-run homer over the centerfield fence.

The Rays would extend that 8-0 lead to 9-0 in the 5th thanks to another lead-off walk. Caminero worked the free pass, moved to second on a Mangum in-field single, moved to third on Simpson’s fielder’s choice and scored on Walls’ second sac fly. The Rays would balloon their run total to 11 in the 7th, as Mangum and Simpson picked up back-to-back singles before a Matt Thaiss two-out triple brought both of them home.

After the failed rally in the 1st, the Orioles’ offense only made noise when the game was already out of reach. Down 9-0, Chadwick Tromp got the O’s on the board in the 5th. The Orioles’ backup catcher jumped on a first-pitch slider from Rays starter Zack Littell, shooting a solo HR over the right field fence. It was Tromp’s first homer with the O’s and first long ball in the majors since 2021.

Laureano would make the scoreline a little more respectable with his 10th HR of the season in the bottom of the 9th. Coby Mayo started the inning with a single up the middle and Laureano followed by hooking a Joe Rock slider around the left-field foul pole for a two-run homer.

Though we don’t normally hand out “Most Birdland Player” in a loss, the run away winner Saturday would have been infielder Luis Vázquez. With Baltimore down 11-1, the O’s 26th man came into pitch in the 8th, and promptly pitched two scoreless innings. The key to Vázquez’s success once again came from getting opposing hitters to ground into double plays. After the Rays grounded into twin killings in both the 8th and 9th, Vázquez has now forced three double-plays this season—the same as reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.

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The Rays win even the season series at 3-3, with a rubber match between Dean Kremer and Taj Bradley scheduled for Sunday at 1:35pm ET.