The Baltimore Orioles‘ 10-game winning streak, the sixth-longest string in franchise history, came to an end Friday night with a 5-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays (box score). The loss, Baltimore’s first since July 2, drops the Orioles back to .500 on the season, at 45-45. They remain in last place in the American League East.
Visiting Baltimore jumped ahead of Tampa Bay early on Friday, taking a 1-0 lead on a Trey Mancini home run in the third inning. Ramón Urías hit his first of two home runs on the night in the fourth to extend that lead to 2-0.
The Rays (50-40) began to fight back from there. Recent addition Yu Chang doubled in a run in the bottom of the fourth to cut the lead in half. Chang plated another run with a double in the sixth, tying the score. Tampa Bay stayed on the attack as Francisco Mejía doubled in a run of his own to give the Rays a 3-2 advantage, and Christian Bethancourt then hit a two-run shot down the line to extend the Rays’ lead to 5-2.
The Orioles closed the gap in the eighth on Urías’ second home run, a two-run shot, but Baltimore went down quietly from there with their next five batters recording outs en route to the loss.
The Orioles’ now-completed winning streak was tied for the sixth-longest in franchise history. Previously, the Orioles had winning streaks of 11 games (once), 13 games (twice) and 14 games (also twice). It’s worth noting that the streak saw the Orioles rise above .500, marking the latest point they’d had a winning record since September 2017.
The Rays, by the way, have now won five consecutive games of their own. Meanwhile the Seattle Mariners, winners of 11 in a row, were up on the Texas Rangers (GameTracker) at the time of publication.
