None of that mattered much once the game actually started. Baltimore scored in single runs across four different innings, and Tampa Bay answered just enough to make it interesting — a run to get on the board, another to even things at 2, and one more late to tie it back up at 3-3. It took extra innings for anybody to actually win it.
The Orioles pushed across the game's decisive run in the 10th, and Tampa Bay went quietly in the bottom half, closing the door on a Rays lineup that had been scoring in bunches. Baltimore finished with 9 hits to Tampa Bay's 11 — the Rays out-hit them and still lost, which tells you plenty about how tight the late innings actually got.
That form card tells two very different stories walking in. Tampa Bay had won 4 of its last 5, including a sweep of the Athletics, before dropping the series opener to Baltimore. The Orioles, meanwhile, were 3-2 in their last 5 and had already beaten this same Rays pitching staff once — proof this particular O's team wasn't intimidated by playing the league's best record.
Both injury boards are worth watching beyond Saturday. Baltimore's position-player group is thinning too, with Samuel Basallo just starting a rehab assignment and Ryan Mountcastle out months longer with an oblique strain. Tampa Bay's silver lining is McClanahan, who's already thrown perfect innings on a rehab assignment — a real boost for a Rays rotation that could use it once the stretch run gets serious.