ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Luis Patino ran out to the mound, bright blue glove in hand, long before any of his teammates were even close to taking the field ahead of the first inning Friday.
He allowed two solo home runs in 3 2/3 innings, but two recently acquired Rays provided crucial RBI hits to help stop the hottest team in baseball in a 5-4 win over the Orioles.
The Rays (50-40) turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-4 lead with four straight extra-base hits in the sixth. Josh Lowe knocked home Yu Chang — claimed off waivers from the Pirates on July 5 — to end the night for Baltimore starter Tyler Wells. Cionel Perez didn’t fare much better, giving up a double from Francisco Mejia before Christian Bethancourt hit a bizarre first home run as a Ray.
Bethancourt, traded from Oakland on July 9 for two prospects, hit a fly ball to the corner in left field that was originally ruled foul. Upon review, however, it was clear the ball had sneaked over Anthony Santander’s glove and just inside the foul pole.
The Rays snapped the Orioles’ win streak at 10 games, Baltimore’s longest in a single season since 1999. The Orioles were the last team to win that many games in a row after losing 110 games the previous season. The Rays have won five straight, their second-longest streak this season.
Cash said Thursday that Patino would not go “very deep” into the game after taking intermittent days to rest a blister on his right middle finger that delayed his return from the left oblique strain that initially landed him on the 60-day injured list.
Patino was uncharacteristically efficient, throwing 38 of his 56 pitches for strikes. The 22-year-old right-hander had to get out of a bases-loaded jam in the first after picking up two outs on his first five pitches, but the youngest starter in the majors needed only seven pitches to get through a 1-2-3 second inning.
But he showed too much of the zone to Trey Mancini, who drove a 1-0 slider over the short wall in left field for his ninth home run of the year. Patino almost got through the fourth, but he was pulled after Ramon Urias drove a 3-2 cutter 400 feet to left. The Rays answered in the bottom of the inning, though, Chang doubling down the left field line to score Isaac Paredes from first.
Chang, who made his seventh career start at shortstop to give Taylor Walls a day off, is 6 for 16 in his six games as a Ray.
Patino’s replacement, Shawn Armstrong, allowed consecutive base hits from Cedric Mullins and Mancini to start the fifth. An infield single by Austin Hays loaded the bases, but Armstrong caught Adley Rutschman looking with a full-count, 95-mph sinker on his last pitch of the night.
The Orioles cut the lead to one in the eighth against Colin Poche, Urias lifting the ball over left-field wall again for the first multi-home run game of his career.
