The Tampa Bay Rays flexed their muscles in their return from the All-Star break, much to the chagrin of the Baltimore Orioles.
Fresh off belting four homers in an 11-1 romp on Friday, the host Rays will vie for a series victory on Saturday when they continue their three-game set against the Orioles.
Junior Caminero followed up his second-place finish in the Home Run Derby on Monday by going deep twice on Friday to boost his team-leading total to 25 on the season.
Yandy Diaz belted his second career grand slam and Danny Jansen also went deep in the series opener.
The power display was a welcome one for Tampa Bay, which skidded into the All-Star break with four straight losses and 11 in its last 14 games overall.
“We needed to feel good about ourselves,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said, “because we didn’t feel good about ourselves for 10 days.”
The Orioles haven’t felt good about themselves recently after getting outscored 28-2 in their last three games.
“We didn’t play good (Friday) really in all three phases,” Baltimore interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “You know, it’s just one game. We’ve had games like this before here over the last couple months. We’ve bounced back pretty good when we’ve had them. So the expectation is that we bounce back tomorrow and play a little bit better.”
Colton Cowser collected three hits and Gunnar Henderson added two and scored the lone run for the Orioles.
“I think every team goes through 27-inning stretches or three-, four-, five-game stretches where they don’t score runs,” Mansolino said. “Unfortunately, we’ve gone through it the last few days and we just need to get ourselves out of it as soon as we can.”
Baltimore’s Dean Kremer (8-7, 4.24 ERA) will be tasked with keeping Tampa Bay in check on Saturday when he makes the start against Zack Littell (8-7, 3.56) in a battle of right-handers.
Kremer improved to 3-0 in his last five starts after scattering three hits over seven scoreless innings in a 5-2 victory over the Miami Marlins on July 11.
He also allowed just three hits over seven scoreless innings in a 5-1 win over the Rays on June 29. He is 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA in two starts against Tampa Bay this season and 4-1 with a 1.91 ERA in nine career games (all starts) versus the Rays.
Littell improved to 2-0 in his last four starts after permitting three runs on six hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 7-3 victory at the Detroit Tigers on July 9.
While his recent stretch has been promising, Littell encountered some difficulties after he chased his youngest son at an indoor playground. The end result was a collision with a rail and a bruise on his forehead for his efforts.
“Knocked me down,” Littell said, per the Tampa Bay Times. “Definitely rung my bell a little bit.”
Littell split a pair of decisions against the Orioles last month despite limiting them to four runs in 13 innings. He is 2-3 with a 2.74 ERA in nine career games (seven starts) versus Baltimore.
–Field Level Media
