[Art Deco]

We finally stopped the rot in Baltimore with three well-pitched starts leading to three wins out of four, although another brutal James Hays outing has us concerned, as is an injury to one of those three starters who pitched well.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a pitcher go from untouchable to almost unusable but James Hays has been that way over his last two starts, and after being bombed for 8 runs and 10 hits in 2 2/3 against Boston he went out tonight and gave up 10 runs (8 earned) on 11 hits in 3 innings in a 12-4 loss at Baltimore. He's still striking out people (4 tonight to give him 38 in 25 IP) but everything else is horrible. He only allowed 5 runs in his first 3 starts so I'm going to think fluke for now but if this were real life I'd think he had an arm issue (not sure how that manifests itself in OOTP). The loss was the Rays' 6th in 7 games with Diego Cartaya (#2) and Andrew Greckel (#3) hitting a pair of consolation 2-run homers.

At long last a decent outing from a starting pitcher as Joe Ryan was 6 3 1 1 3 7 in by far his best outing of the year and he left with a 5-1 lead. However the bullpen blew it in the 8th allowing the Orioles to tie before Kelly Crumpton rescued them with a solo homer in the 10th (#9) to give the Rays a much-needed 6-5 win. Keylan Kilgore was terrible in relief, allowing a run and leaving two on when Robinson Ortiz served up a 3-run homer to former Ray Marcell Ozuna (who also homered last night off Hays) to tie it. Alex Kirilloff was 3-5 with a pair of RBI doubles and Andrew Greckel had a 2-run double to build the early lead. Yasunari Uehara pitched the 9th and 10th for his 2nd win.

Transaction: Perhaps the reason Kilgore was terrible was because he developed a sore elbow, and will be out 2-3 weeks. Christian Chamberlain is back up from Durham to replace him.

Slade Cecconi, in and out of the rotation the last couple of seasons, got back in taking JT Ginn's spot and if tonight is any indication Cecconi won't be going anywhere as he was absolutely brilliant in a 4-0 win. He retired the first 15 Orioles he faced, put men on 1st and 3rd to start the 6th and then struck out the side to get out of that and finished 6 3 0 0 0 7 to earn his first win of the year. Kelly Crumpton grabbed a share of the AL home run lead with a 2-run blast in the 1st, his 10th, and rookie Jose Aguilar got a chance to start and impressed, going 2-3 with a pair of doubles, a pair of walks and an RBI.

The Rays made it 3 out of 4 thanks to a 4-2 win behind Pablo Lopez, making his second start since being acquired from Philadelphia. Lopez was extremely efficient, shutting out the Orioles on 55 pitches through 6 and took a 4-1 lead into the 9th. He gave up a solo homer to finish 8.1 7 2 2 0 7 on only 93 pitches to make it two wins in two starts but was maybe pushed too far as he suffered a herniated disc and will be out 2-3 weeks. Yasunari Uehara got the final two outs for save #3. Wander Franco had HR #4, a solo shot, among his two hits while Andrew Greckel and Kelly Crumpton had RBI knocks.

Team record: 11-13, now within 5 1/2 of Boston which dropped 2 of 3 in New York to the Yankees. Next up: 3 games in Cleveland.