Rays 0, Orioles 5: Question: Will the Rays ever win again?

The Rays will have another chance tonight to end their losing streak that has gone on for what seems to be an eternity. This afternoon, however, there was never any point that you felt the Rays had a reasonable shot at winning.

Matt Andriese filled in for the spot start and pitched relatively well. He went 4.2 innings while allowing two earned runs on five hits while striking out five and walking two.

All of the damage off of Andriese came in the second inning as Jonathan Schoop led off the inning with a double that was got to the left field wall on one hop. Pedro Alvarez followed with a walk. J.J. Hardy hit a single up the middle to open the scoring as Schoop scored. Francisco Pena hit a ground ball that Tim Beckham made a nice play to turn a double play on a ball that took a crazy hop and turned the routine play into anything but. Adam Jones singled off a ball well out of the zone to center to score the second run off Andriese.

Andriese pitched solid 1-2-3 innings in the third and fourth, but would be removed after 78 pitches with Machado up to bat for the third time after he walked Hyun Soo Kim with two outs.

Tyler Sturdevant was called upon to pick up some innings with the double header today. He picked up 2 innings and pitched pretty well. After allowing a Manny Machado single he struck out Chris Davis with two on to end the fifth inning.

The Orioles were able to string together a few hits and tacked on a run in the sixth and two in the seventh.

In the bottom of the eighth inning Enny Romero took a line drive off his pitching hand, and was removed and looked to be in a lot of pain. At this point hearing he might have to have it amputated wouldn’t surprise me. (Just kidding, I hope)

The Rays had two real opportunities to score as in the second inning they put two on with one out as Logan Morrison led the inning off with a single. Tim Beckham hit a ground ball to J.J. Hardy that should have been an easy double play, but misplayed the flip to second base and wind up with no outs. Jaff Decker lined out to right field and Taylor Motter struck out to end the threat.

In the ninth inning Oliver Drake entered the game. To give us our obligatory faux 9th inning rally, he walked Corey Dickerson and Evan Longoria to start the inning with the Rays down five. Drake had no idea where the ball was going and almost hit Longoria in the head twice. Logan Morrison struck out and Brad Miller hit a ground ball that Chris Davis fumbled at first but was able to throw to the pitcher covering from his back. Oswaldo Arcia made his Rays debut pinch-hitting for Tim Beckham and ground out to second base to end the game.

Who knows when the Rays will win again, but they need to hit better for that to happen. Neither team hit the ball particularly hard, but the Rays definitely deserved to lose this game.