The American League East-leading Baltimore Orioles will try to complete their second straight road sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday afternoon in St. Petersburg, Fla. Baltimore, which swept a four-game series at Tropicana Field from June 7-10, can complete a three-game sweep on Sunday and finish the season 7-0 on the road against the Rays.
Right-hander Albert Suarez (5-4, 3.66 ERA), filling in the starting spot of injured Grayson Rodriguez, will pitch for the Orioles and will be opposed by left-hander Jeffrey Springs (0-1, 6.23). Suarez is 0-0 with a 3.72 ERA in two career starts against Tampa Bay.
He faced the Rays on May 31, allowing one run on four hits over five innings with five strikeouts but didn’t get the decision in the Orioles’ 3-1 victory.
It will be the 16th start of the season and 24th appearance for Suarez, who found out 10 minutes before Baltimore’s 5-2 loss at Toronto on Tuesday that he would be starting in place of 13-game winner Rodriguez. Rodriguez was placed on the 15-day injured list on Wednesday with right lat/teres discomfort that flared up in pregame warmups.
“That was a rush,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said. “Before the game, (pitching coach Drew French) sprinted in here, we got Al’s cleats on. To give us five innings in that spot, that’s unbelievable.”
Suarez said: “For me, I just get my mind always ready for this type of situation, being the long reliever in the bullpen.
You don’t want this to happen, but sometimes it happens.” It will be just the third start of the season for Springs, who came off the 60-day injured list on July 28 after Tommy John surgery last season.
Springs is 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA in 12 career appearances (two starts) against Baltimore. He allowed four runs on six hits and three walks while striking out three over five innings in his last start on Tuesday, a 4-3 loss at St. Louis. Tampa Bay is six games out of the final American League wild-card spot after a 7-5 loss on Saturday, falling to 58-58 for the season.
The Rays rallied from an early 4-0 deficit to make the score 4-4 on a Jose Caballero solo homer in the seventh, but Baltimore quickly regained the lead in the top of the eighth on a two-run, go-ahead home run by Ramon Urias and an RBI single by Ryan Mountcastle off of reliever Colin Poche.
“Pretty exciting at the moment,” Caballero said, according to MLB.com, of his game-tying homer. “But at the end of the game, nothing to be happy about.”
Poche had a streak of nine scoreless appearances snapped. Tampa Bay has lost 10 of its past 11 games against Baltimore. “We had a lot of momentum going, and it just kind of crashed that inning,” Poche said. “So it’s pretty frustrating, for sure. … We’re just trying to do what we can each day to get the win, and obviously we need to start stacking those together.”
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