Yandy Diaz and Taylor Walls each hit a solo home run and an RBI single as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the host Baltimore Orioles 7-1 on Saturday.
Diaz finished with three hits for Tampa Bay (70-72), which ended a two-game skid. Jonny DeLuca went 3-for-5 with two runs.
Ryan Pepiot (8-6) put together a strong start for the Rays, giving up one run on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out four.
Cedric Mullins homered as Baltimore (82-61) lost for the first time in the six games in which Zach Eflin has taken the mound.
Eflin (10-8), who was acquired from the Rays via trade in late July, blanked Tampa Bay across seven innings back on Aug. 9. But he got roughed up on Saturday, yielding three runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings. Eflin walked one and fanned four.
Drew Rasmussen worked 1 2/3 innings of relief before Mason Montgomery and Hunter Bigge each logged an inning out of the Tampa Bay bullpen. Montgomery was making his second career big-league appearance.
Aside from the Mullins home run, the Orioles didn’t have an extra-base hit. No Baltimore player finished with more than one hit.
The Orioles won the three-game series opener 2-0 on Friday night despite posting only four hits. On Saturday, the limited offense wasn’t enough.
Diaz led off the game with his 14th homer of the season. Walls opened the third with his first homer of the year, making it 2-0.
The Orioles managed only four singles through four innings.
Walls singled in a run in the sixth before Mullins went deep in the home half of the inning. Logan Driscoll’s RBI single in the seventh brought home an extra run because of a throwing error from first baseman Ryan O’Hearn.
Diaz had a run-scoring single in the eighth, and DeLuca scored on a wild pitch in the ninth.
–Field Level Media