It should be clear as the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles head into the rubber match of the three-game series that keeping their starting pitchers in the game could be the key factor.
The teams clash Sunday afternoon in Baltimore, where each team has turned to position players on the mound so far in this series.
There have been a pair of lopsided results, and in each case the losing team didn’t want to burn any more pitching, so it opted to take an unconventional approach. Baltimore won 22-8 on Friday night and Tampa Bay countered with Saturday’s 11-3 victory.
“We’re trying to add up innings and figure out how we’re going to get through this thing and not be the front page of another story, which isn’t that fun,” Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino said.
The teams have split the first six meetings of the season, all coming this month.
The Rays bounced back in the second game of the series after its bullpen was beat down a night earlier, so they were thankful starting pitcher Zack Littell gave them seven strong innings.
“We were pretty chewed up in the bullpen and now we’re able to reset, certainly, with his efforts,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said.
Cash said he expects the same approach regardless of what happened a day earlier.
“There was no difference with us in the clubhouse,” he said.
Tampa Bay first baseman Jonathan Aranda smashed his 10th home run of the season Saturday, though his 1-for-4 outing caused his batting average to dip to .330.
Cash said of what’s most impressive is “the consistency (Aranda) has shown with the bat.”
The Orioles have lost five of their last seven games.
Baltimore catcher Chadwick Tromp homered for the first time since 2021 in Saturday’s game for one of the team’s three hits across the first seven innings.
“When you lose, it don’t matter,” Tromp said. “I don’t care. I just want to win. So let’s go get them (Sunday).”
Mansolino said after a 22-run game Friday night that the Orioles didn’t have answers against Rays starter Zack Littell. He said that shouldn’t impact what happens moving forward in terms of Baltimore’s batters.
“To me, I just kind of toss this one aside and wouldn’t evaluate our offense (based on this game),” Mansolino said.
The Orioles will send right-hander Dean Kremer (6-7, 4.60 ERA) to the mound looking for his second victory against the Rays this month. He was the winning pitcher on June 17, holding Tampa Bay to one run in five innings.
Kremer had a no-decision in his next outing, with the New York Yankees scoring one run in 5 2/3 innings.
It’s right-hander Taj Bradley’s turn for the Rays as he’ll aim for back-to-back victories for the first time since his first two decisions of the season — or in more than 2 1/2 months.
Bradley (5-5, 4.57) is coming off one of the finest outings of his three-year career. He blanked the host Kansas City Royals for 6 2/3 innings on Tuesday night. In his outing before that, Bradley surrendered seven runs (six earned) in 1 1/3 innings to the visiting Orioles but did not figure into the decision on June 18 as the Rays won 12-8.
Bradley went 1-0 in two 2023 starts against the Orioles and 0-2 in two 2024 outings against Baltimore.