The Rays nearly overcame a large deficit Tuesday with a four-run inning. On Wednesday, a four-run second was all they needed to beat the Orioles.
Baltimore starting pitcher Tyler Wells had a disastrous second inning — allowing two home runs and committing two errors — and the Orioles’ bats couldn’t mount a comeback in a 7-2 loss.
A day after tallying 10 hits and eight runs, the Orioles managed just four hits, struggling to square up rookie starter Taj Bradley or Tampa Bay’s sharp bullpen. The lone offense of the afternoon came on solo home runs to straightaway center field from Ramón Urías in the third inning and Gunnar Henderson in the ninth.
“We didn’t play very well today,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “Those games are gonna happen. Tyler’s been amazing for us all season, just didn’t have his best start. We couldn’t get much going offensively today off Bradley.”
Baltimore (45-28) and the MLB-best Rays (52-25) end the two-game series at Tropicana Field with a split. The Orioles are five games back of Tampa Bay for first place in the American League East.
The two solo home runs Wells surrendered in the second continued a concerning trend amid his impressive campaign as Baltimore’s best starting pitcher and a potential All-Star candidate. Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes blasted back-to-back homers off Wells. Arozarena, who entered Wednesday with a 1.088 OPS in 41 career games against the Orioles, hammered a high fastball over the center field wall for his 14th homer of the year, while Paredes yanked a 3-2 cutter down the left field line.
In 14 starts, Wells has allowed 18 home runs, putting him on pace to give up nearly 40 this season. However, the reason he’s managed to lead the rotation with a 3.22 ERA and the major leagues with an 0.89 WHIP is because 12 of the 18 homers have been solo shots, while the other six have been two-run homers. Twenty-four of his 31 earned runs allowed this season have come via home runs.
“I have a high-carry fastball. I pitch up in the zone a lot. I challenge guys. I don’t walk a lot of guys, with the exception of today. With challenging guys comes home runs,” Wells said, listing off the reasons why he has allowed the second most homers in the majors. “Most of my runs have been given up on homers. Is that something I’d like to change? Absolutely. But I think I’ve got to figure out some other things to continually keep guys on their toes and execute better pitches.”
It wasn’t the long ball that did Wells in Wednesday, though, but instead two soft tappers back to the mound. After the back-to-back homers, Wells booted a soft ground ball right at him. Three batters later, Jose Siri’s swinging bunt allowed him to reach first safely, but Wells compounded the bad luck with an imprudent throwing error, flinging an off-balance throw over first baseman Urías’ head. Two more runs scored in the fourth, and both were unearned because of Wells’ miscues.
Hyde said Wells’ mistakes were “uncharacteristic,” calling him a “good fielding pitcher.” Wells said the two errors — the first a physical mistake, the second a mental one — “haunt” him and are “completely unacceptable.”
“The way that it played out in my head was, I was running to the ball, told myself not to throw it, not to throw it, not to throw it. I see him halfway down the line, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ve got him,’ and you make a bad throw,” Wells said about his second error. “Sometimes it unfolds that fast. It was a bad mental error, but you know what, I’m just gonna look at the positives here and understand I’m gonna be better next time for it and make sure I don’t make that mistake again.”
Despite unraveling in the 39-pitch second, Wells bounced back over the next three frames to extend his streak of consecutive starts of at least five innings this season to 14. The 28-year-old faced just one batter over the minimum to record the final nine outs, ending his afternoon allowing four runs (two earned) on four hits and three walks while striking out six.
The Rays tacked on two insurance runs in the seventh off reliever Keegan Akin and one off Cole Irvin in the eighth. After relieving Logan Gillaspie in the sixth and striking out two to strand two runners, Akin gave up three singles in the seventh, including an RBI knock to Arozarena, as well as a sacrifice fly to Wander Franco. Yandy Díaz put the Rays up 7-1 with a two-out RBI single in the eighth.
The Orioles went 4-for-31 against Bradley and relievers Colin Poche, Kevin Kelly and Zack Littell. In his first start against Baltimore and just the 10th of his nascent career, Bradley looked worthy of his ranking as the 11th-best prospect in the sport by Baseball America. The 22-year-old right-hander struck out eight across a career-high six innings of one-run ball.
“We had a hard time stringing together some hits against him,” said Hays, who went 0-for-3. “He did a good job of limiting base runners today.”
Aside from Urías and Henderson, the only other batter to record a hit was Ryan O’Hearn. Henderson went 2-for-4 to improve his batting average in June to .358. His 110.3 mph home run in the ninth was his 11th of the season and sixth this month.
Around the horn
- Adley Rutschman caught Wednesday, a rare instance of him serving as Baltimore’s backstop for a day game after a night game. But with days off bookending the Orioles’ two-game series in Tampa Bay and with backup catcher James McCann on the injured list, Hyde elected to start Rutschman behind the plate, calling the series a “special circumstance.” The 25-year-old is on pace to start 111 games and play 122 behind the plate.
- Hyde said Irvin, who would have started Friday against the Seattle Mariners had the Orioles’ rotation remained on turn, will start “in the next few days.” Kyle Gibson and Dean Kremer were announced after the game as Baltimore’s probable starters Friday and Saturday, respectively. Sunday’s starter has yet to be announced. With two days off this week, Baltimore won’t need a fifth starter — the role Irvin has filled since being recalled earlier this month — until Tuesday.
Mariners at Orioles
Friday, 7:05 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
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