Rays 7 Orioles 1: Sometimes, the baseball gods have your back

It’s been a while since the Rays were the team with the strong defense and timely hits. Watching this game I kept thinking how rough this would be if you were an Orioles fan; with your team fighting for the division title, you allow five walks, commit a costly run-scoring error, throw two costly wild pitches, and serve up a home run to Taylor Walls?

Meanwhile the Rays, after so many runners-in-scoring-position woes, came up with a winning formula to start the game.

First, to avoid stranding runners, you hit the ball out of the park:

Time to buy a lottery ticket

Next, if the other team hits the ball out of the park, you jump high and catch it:

Pepiot was working frequently with men on base, but with a few exceptions — the Cedric Mullins home run and Gunnar Henderson’s near home run (thanks to Siri’s catch) — the Orioles got little hard contact off of him.

It was also nice to see some good bullpen work when Pepiot ran out of steam. Drew Rasmussen continued to impress in his multi-inning reliever role, and newbies Mason Montgomery and Hunter Bigge each pitched a scoreless, hitless inning.

Yandy Diaz, Johnny De Luca and Taylor Walls (!) were the offensive heroes of the game, accounting for eight of the Rays 12 hits.

Tomorrow looks like an uphill battle, with the less than dominant Zach Littell taking on Orioles ace Corbin Burnes, so enjoy the sweet smell of victory while it lasts.