ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Baltimore Orioles saw their leads come and go against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on Wednesday night.
And the Orioles showed the same resiliency that helped define their 2012 season, rallying back from two late-inning deficits to tie the game heading into the bottom of the ninth.
But when Matt Joyce’s solo home run off reliever Tommy Hunter sailed into the right field seats — giving the Rays an 8-7 walk-off win — it ended a bullpen outing very uncharacteristic of the 2012 Orioles.
The Orioles’ bullpen allowed six runs in 3 1/ 3 relief innings — wasting a solid start by Wei-Yin Chen — culminating with Joyce’s homer on a 3-1 pitch off Hunter.
Since the start of the 2012 season, the eight current members of the Orioles’ bullpen posted a 1.27 ERA against the Rays. Luis Ayala and Pedro Strop, who allowed five runs Wednesday, entered the night combining to allow just two runs in 17 innings against Tampa Bay in 2012.
Trailing 7-6 entering the top of the ninth inning, the Orioles tied the game against reigning AL comeback player of the year Fernando Rodney, who converted 48 of 50 saves last year and had a 19-appearance scoreless streak.
After Nolan Reimold drew a nine-pitch walk to open the inning, Brian Roberts laced a double down the left field line to score Reimold from first, but the Orioles stranded Roberts — who was on third with one out — after back-to-back ground outs.
Earlier in the game, the Orioles (1-1) saw a four-run lead evaporate quickly. And the Orioles’ bullpen allowed five runs in 2 2/ 3 innings.
They also wasted a four-hit, four-RBI effort by first baseman Chris Davis, who hit his second homer of the season — a three-run shot — and has seven RBI through the season’s first two games.
With his team leading 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh, left-handed pinch hitter Joyce came to the plate and saw the Orioles playing the same pull shift against him as they did in Tuesday’s opener, with third baseman Manny Machado playing shallow right field leaving half of the left side of the infield empty.
Joyce dropped a bunt down the third base line and easily beat Orioles reliever Pedro Strop’s wild throw to first. No. 9 hitter Kelly Johnson’s single put runners at the corners and Joyce scored the tying run on a Strop slider that skipped past catcher Matt Wieters. Pinch hitter James Loney and right fielder Ben Zobrist then had back-to-back run-scoring hits to give the Rays a 7-5 lead.
Chen had held the Rays scoreless through his first five innings of work and left the game with a 4-1 lead with one on and two outs in the sixth before Ayala yielded a game-tying, three-run homer to Rays first baseman Shelley Duncan.
— Baltimore Sun
