The Orioles didn’t just survive the Rays this weekend. They started to look like a team that believes it can bend the rest of this season to its will.
Sunday’s 10-2 win at Tropicana Field was the cleanest statement yet, a runaway after two tense one-run victories on Friday and Saturday. Baltimore had already squeezed out enough drama to win the series. This time, it turned the thing into a rout, and did it with another strange but productive leadoff wrinkle: Jackson Holliday.
The Orioles now have a shot to finish off a four-game sweep Monday, which would give them their second four-game winning streak of the season and move them within a game of .500. That’s a sharp turn for a club whose season has spent long stretches looking stuck in place. Tampa Bay came into the series riding nine straight wins, while Baltimore is trying to claw its way into the mess of the Wild Card race.
Craig Albernaz has kept pressing the right buttons in Florida. He dropped Gunnar Henderson to fifth on Friday, and Henderson responded with four hits and a game-winning homer. Tyler O’Neill delivered Saturday’s extra-inning win, helped by Cam Sanders, and on Sunday Holliday was in the leadoff spot for the first time this season and helped blow the game open.
Holliday, who spent plenty of time leading off last season and struggled in that role, has changed the shape of his season since July 1. The adjustments to where he stands in the box and where he meets the ball have made a real difference. After Baltimore had trouble getting anything going the first time through the order, Holliday worked a full count in the fifth, stayed on a tough 0-2 pitch with two outs, and lined a ball up the middle to tie it 1-1 against Freddy Peralta.
From there, the Orioles took control.
Pete Alonso followed with a two-run double, and Baltimore exploded in the sixth with seven runs. The inning dragged on so long that Rays pitchers needed more than 50 pitches to finally get out of it, and it all happened with two outs. Colton Cowser added a homer, Holliday ripped a double to center to make it 7-1, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand finished off the scoring.
"I'm just happy i was able to get one on the inner half of the plate and put it in play," said Alonso, a Florida native who always seems to hit well in his home state.
Alonso had entered the game in good shape after a minor calf strain Saturday, and he kept the pressure on with the big hit that opened the floodgates.
Trevor Rogers did his part, too. Baltimore’s starters had to grind through the first two games of the series without their best stuff, and Rogers wasn’t overpowering either.
He’s now allowed 22 hits in 22 innings over his last four starts. But Sunday was about damage control, and he handled that well.
He walked only one, gave up seven hits and two runs, one of them on a solo homer, and kept the Rays from turning base runners into something bigger.
That leaves the Orioles with a chance Monday to close out what would feel like the biggest win of the season so far. Brandon Young is set to start, and the leadoff spot, like so much else these days, is up in the air.
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