Rays-Orioles preview
BALTIMORE-- The return of Manny Machado helps the Baltimore Orioles in several ways and one should be easy to see during Saturday's split doubleheader with the Tampa Bay Rays, who will be trying to snap an eight-game losing streak. Since Machado was serving a four-game suspension, the Orioles were not able to replace him on their roster. That left them one player short throughout that time, something manager Buck Showalter said made life a bit tougher. Machado returned to the Orioles (42-30) in Friday's 6-3 victory over Tampa Bay (31-40), and Showalter said he's glad to be playing with a full team once more. "It makes it a little bit easier to do some things," Showalter said. "I think just feeling like you weren't trying to get through another day (is good)." The Orioles brought up left-hander T.J. McFarland to help their over-worked bullpen. He'll be serving as the 26th man Saturday. Tampa Bay will be bringing in outfielder Oswaldo Arcia, whom the team got in a trade with the Twins on Friday. The Rays sent down right-hander Steve Geltz after Friday's loss, and Danny Farquhar will be the team's 26th man for the twinbill. Kevin Gausman (0-5, 4.37) still is searching for his first victory despite not pitching that badly with the Orioles. Baltimore simply has not given him much run support, scoring only 38 runs in his 12 starts. Chris Tillman starts the second game and has fared much better. Tillman (10-1, 3.11) comes in on a nine-game winning streak and is one of the best pitchers in the majors. The Rays send out Matt Andriese (6-0, 2.88) in the opener. He's made seven starts and three appearances in relief this year and is one of six pitchers in the majors to win their first six decisions. In the second game, Jake Odorizzi (3-3, 3.63) starts, and he's also pitched well, but is tied for first in the majors with nine no-decisions. The Rays are looking for their offense to wake up after not doing much during their slide. Tampa Bay hit .183 in the seven games prior to Friday, and manager Kevin Cash shook up the lineup with a number of moves in that game as the Rays face the Orioles and Boston in back-to-back series, and don't want to slip farther back in the American League East. Baltimore enters the game in first in the division while the Rays are in last place, 10 1/2 games back. The Rays banged out three runs on four hits in the first inning -- but only five more hits the rest of the way as Baltimore scored the final six runs. The losses are tough to deal with for Tampa Bay. "They're all frustrating, whether you lose it early or a game gets away from you," Cash said. "They're all frustrating." Right now, the Rays need some kind of help from their offense. It just has not been there lately, a big reason they've slumped. "We're trying to kind of pick up the middle of the lineup," Cash said. "We play the Orioles for four and then the Red Sox. This would be a really nice time for us to get it going because that's the quickest way you can make a dent in the standings." |