Game of the Week: Orioles Down Rays 4-2

By John Ginder
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Updated: May 4, 2015

As another week of baseball is in the books, so to is our Game of the Week series. After stellar pitching performances by both teams it was the Baltimore Orioles that would come out on top beating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2, thanks to a three-run seventh inning by Baltimore. As everyone was aware this series was being played in Tampa and Baltimore was the “home” team for the series.

“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. But it’s cool that the Rays and their organization saw what was going on in Baltimore and they offered to switch the series on such short notice. So you’ve got to give them thanks because if that didn’t happen we wouldn’t be playing this weekend in Baltimore. It’s good that the Rays organization found it smart to switch locations” – Adam Jones

Nathan Karns started the game for Tampa and baffled hitters the entire day. The only knock was that he was able to just throw five innings due to a high pitch count. Karns struck out four Orioles and would leave the game with the lead, and leave it up to the Rays bullpen to help try and secure his second win of the season. They didn’t do it.

With the score 2-0 in favor of the “visiting” team in the sixth inning, the Orioles were able to get to the Rays pen and put one run on the board. Manny Machado started the offense with a bunt single and would later score on an RBI single by Reynaldo Navarro off of pitcher Steven Geltz. It wouldn’t get better for the Rays in the seventh.

After allowing to runners to get on base, Geltz was lifted in favor of 30-year old Kevin Jepsen to stop the threat. Jepsen who had been fairing well so far this season didn’t get his job done allowing three straight hits which led to three runs. The hit that put the nail in the coffin essentially for the Rays was Adam Jones‘ two-out two-run single that put the game out of reach for Tampa. ones went 4-for-4 and raised his season average to .402.

On the other side of the things, the Orioles got all they needed from their bullpen who allowed just two base runners in three innings, one by throwing error and one by walk. Baltimore needed an inning and a third from Zach Britton who struck out two and eventually recorded his fifth save of the season.

With the series win, the Orioles are 12-11 on the season and are just percentage points above the 13-12 Rays. They are both three games behind the resurgent New York Yankees for first place in the American League East.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Legends on Deck’s “Game of the Week” series, when we travel to Detroit to see the Tigers against the reigning American League Champion Kansas City Royals. As always follow along with us all week as we take a closer look into both of the organizations.

John Ginder

John has recently graduated from the University at Albany with a B.A. in History and is currently finishing his Master's Degree there as well in secondary education. After being away from school for over two decades he decided to go back and work towards his dream of becoming a social studies teacher.