In the end, the Birds pitched OK, but got very little going against Rays lefty Ryan Yarbrough, while a Tampa Bay hitter with a .302 OPS against lefties—yes, that’s OPS—struck the game’s biggest blow against Orioles starter Keegan Akin with a two-run dinger in the fourth.
Ryan Yarbrough is that type of crafty lefty who doesn’t throw hard but has a nice curveball, so he draws a lot of silly swings.
The only damage the Birds did do against Yarbrough came in the third, just as announcers Jim Palmer and Kevin Brown were starting to get hungry, apparently.
Catcher Mike Zunino led off with a drive that sounded like a home run off the bat, but instead it hit the wall.
A slow rolling single and a wild pitch later, and there were runners on the corners with no one out.
But Brosseau, having obviously failed to read his scouting report on the Orioles outfielders, got greedy and ran straight into the Austin Hays buzzsaw, who threw him out at second.
Remember when John Means game up a home run to Billy Hamilton, a guy who’d hit all of two home runs in his last two seasons? This was almost as bad.
After Akin’s decent-but-abbreviated outing ended after four innings, a huge bright spot tonight was Tyler Wells, who entered in the fifth for just one of those high-leverage spots manager Brandon Hyde has been talking about giving him lately.
Wells got into a little trouble in the sixth, allowing two consecutive singles with one out.
Cole Sulser relieved Wells in the seventh, and quickly gave up a run when the speedy Kevin Kiermaier turned a shift-beating roller into a double and Manuel Margot singled him in.
Truthfully, the pitching could have been way worse, the way it was the last time the Orioles played the Rays.