Cash fashioned a win from his bullpen./JEFFREY S. KING
Wednesday, 3 a.m.
Kevin Cash, amateur weatherman, thought it was going to rain.
Turns out, that was the only part of the forecast he got wrong Tuesday night.
Cash quilted together five Rays' relievers, who combined for a two-hit shutout in a 2-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles. It was only the second Rays' road win of the year (2-7).
Cash scratched scheduled starter Erasmo Ramirez because of the cloudy skies and instead went with rookie Travis Pruitt, who had his third straight impressive outing. Pruitt has lowered his ERA to 6.28 over the last three outings. He's given up two hits and no runs in those games.
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Whitley threw three perfect innings./JEFFREY S. KING
Pruitt had struggled mightily early in the season, allowing 24 of 41 batters to reach base. This time, he pitched three innings. Danny Farquhar came on for two-thirds of an innning, followed by Jumbo Diaz (1.1 innings), Chase Whitley (three innings) and Alex Colome (one inning). Whitley got the win and Colome got the save.
Both Diaz and Whitley retired all of the batters they faced. In all, the Rays sat down 18 of the last 19 they faced, a walk by Colome being the only blemish.
Steven Souza Jr. had three hits for the Rays. Tim Beckham singled in one run and Derek Norris had a sacrifice fly for the other.
Whitley has not surrendered a run in his three games this season. He started the season in the minors as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
“Great win,” said Cash. “The bullpen really, really stepped up in a huge way. About 6:40, we made the decision to avoid Erasmo from starting. We thought we were going to have rain from 8-8:15.”
“We just kind of adjusted on the fly. We were kind of in the same boat last night with Chris Archer. We were very fortunate.”
The Rays go for the series win today. Alex Cobb is scheduled to pitch against the O's Dylan Bundy.
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