ST. PETERSBURG — The Rays performed almost 100 video games this season whereas claiming sole possession of first place within the American League East standings. They let the Orioles spend solely in the future alone on the high.
Starter Zach Eflin bounced again from his worst begin of the season by pitching seven excellent innings, snapping the Rays’ five-game dropping streak with a 3-0 win over the Orioles on Friday evening earlier than a crowd of 19,703 at Tropicana Area.
Eflin allowed 5 runs in three innings towards the Royals on Sunday as he battled his mechanics all through an outing that made him wish to “flush it down the bathroom and transfer on to the following one.” And transfer on he did, placing collectively one in all his greatest begins in a Rays uniform to drag Tampa Bay (61-40) again even within the standings with Baltimore (59-38).
Eflin allowed solely two hits and one stroll whereas hanging out eight. He confronted 24 batters and ran up a three-ball depend towards solely two of them. Every of his first 5 strikeouts got here on sinkers that had been known as for strikes, then he racked up three extra swinging strikeouts on his four-seam fastball, curveball and sinker to punctuate his outing.
It was the form of victory the Rays wanted after dropping 12 of their first 15 video games in July. They gave Eflin an early lead, as Brandon Lowe doubled and scored on a second-inning single by Harold Ramírez, then added large solo pictures from their two main house run hitters this season.
Isaac Paredes, who hit a double to the deepest a part of the park within the fourth inning, blasted his 18th house run of the yr out to left-center area off Orioles starter Kyle Bradish within the sixth inning to make it a 2-0 recreation. Jose Siri tacked on his team-leading twentieth homer within the seventh, launching a first-pitch, 99.4 mph fastball from Shintaro Fujinami out to left area.