Rays blast Orioles with home run barrage
Tuesday, 4 a.m.
You say you've lost a couple of games. You say you are stranding too many runners on base. You say you wake up with a slight headache.
Man, do we have a solution for you.
Meet the Baltimore Orioles, baseball's cure-all to whatever ails you.
The Tampa Bay Rays hammered the Orioles once again Monday, winning a 9-2 romp in which they homered five times. It was the 12th time in 13
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games that the Rays have beaten Baltimore. The Rays have scored nine or more runs in eight of their wins.
This time, Brandon Lowe homered twice, bringing his total to 28 on the season, Kevin Kiermaier and Mike Brousseau homered, and Brett Phillips hit an inside-the-park homer.
“He’s a special hitter," Rays' manager Kevin Cash said. "He stayed at it through tough stretches early on. We were all very confident that he was going to find a way to get out of it. He's a really good hitter. When he gets pitches he can hit, he’s got a knack for knocking it out of the ballpark."
Lowe leads the Rays in home runs, although catcher Mike Zunino has been closing the gap as of late.
"I told him he had to take a couple of days and rest his body," Lowe said, grinning. "Give me a chance to build my lead back up. We like to have fun in the clubhouse. It’s that competition that makes it fun."
Phillips, who has three grand slams this year, added another highlight to his season.
"It's the most exhausting fun thing I've done this year," Phillips said, "But definitely fun."
For the Rays, Josh Fleming picked up the win by pitching 5 2/3 innings. Colin McHugh started and threw two perfect innings.
The Orioles will start ace John Means in tonight's 7:10 p.m. game at Tropicana Field. Drew Rasmussen will start for Tampa Bay.