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The Rays got back on track Saturday night behind some strong pitching, clean defense, and a pair of homers from Randy Arozarena. The Rays did everything right en route to a 6-1 victory, playing a clean brand of baseball that was in stark contrast to Friday night’s effort.
Jeffrey Springs, the former reliever turned starter, got the ball for the Rays in his third traditional start of the year. The southpaw tossed 5.2 innings of shutout baseball, tallying seven strikeouts and walking four. The outing dropped his ERA to a stellar 1.32 across 27.1 innings.
On the flip side, Orioles starter, Kyle Bradish, surrendered five runs over 5.1 innings of work. He struck out five and walked two.
At the plate, Randy Arozarena stole the show for the Rays, hitting a pair of bombs and driving in three runs.
The first blast came in the first inning and gave the Rays a two run lead.
Right away for Randy pic.twitter.com/FrRqa31AcY
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 21, 2022
His second homer of the day came in the fourth and the newly renovated left field wall of Camden Yards proved to be no match. The blast gave the Rays a 3-0 lead.
It's official: this new wall is fine, and we're not sure what the complaints are about pic.twitter.com/2R7RSAkR9x
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 22, 2022
Kevin Kiermaier also got in on the fun at the plate going 3-4 out of the leadoff spot with a blast of his own in the 8th inning. In his last 12 games, KK has three bombs and is hitting .371.
KK looks pretty comfortable at the top of the lineup pic.twitter.com/IsIbLJ5P0b
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 22, 2022
In total, the Rays scored six runs, four of which came via the long ball. The other two came in the sixth inning when Ji-Man Choi drove in KK with a sac fly and Harold Ramirez drove in Yandy Diaz with a ground ball to third.
There was a silver lining to the loss for the O’s as the #1 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Adley Rutschman, made his highly anticipated debut. He finished the night 1-3 with a walk, a strikeout, and a triple for his first major league hit.
Grab that baseball! @RutschmanAdley is on the board with a three-bagger! pic.twitter.com/1H4Ha1vpMJ
— MLB (@MLB) May 22, 2022
On the bump, Jason Adam tossed a scoreless third of an inning. Ralph Garza Jr. made his second appearance in as many days and surrendered the only run of the day along with four hits across 2 innings. And, Colin Poche shut the door with a scoreless 9th.
Jeffrey Springs earned the win, his second of the year. Kyle Bradish took the loss.
The win pushed the Rays’ record to 24-16 and moved them to within 5.5 games of the Yankees who currently sit at 29-10.
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