Baltimore Orioles vs Tampa Bay Rays Match Player Stats On Oct 01, 2017

The Sports Xchange
Oct 1, 2017

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Curt Casali hit his first home run of the season and Blake Snell had a career-high 13 strikeouts to lift the Tampa Bay Rays to a 6-0 victory against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday at Tropicana Field.

The Rays swept the Orioles and closed the season winning four straight to finish 80-82, a 12-game improvement from last season.

Baltimore (75-87) lost five straight games to close out its 2017 campaign with a last-place finish in the American League East.

After spending the first half of the season between the Rays and their Triple-A affiliate in Durham, Snell (5-7) went 5-1 in his last nine starts and arguably saved his best stuff of the season for Sunday's finale.

Snell retired the first 12 hitters and struck out two batters in six of seven innings. He allowed two hits and threw 100 pitches in the seven-inning outing with 71 strikes.

The Orioles only got hits from Manny Machado, Trey Mancini and Mark Trumbo, and never had a runner reach second base.

Casali led off the bottom of the fifth inning with a home run to left field on a 3-1 pitch from Orioles starter Kevin Gausman to give the Rays a 1-0 lead.

Gausman (11-12) gave up six hits and struck out nine over seven innings.

Tampa Bay increased its lead against Orioles reliever Brad Brach. Third baseman Evan Longoria roped a double to right field that scored pinch runner Peter Bourjos and Logan Morrison added an RBI single to make it 3-0.

Brach's struggles continued as he walked Steven Souza Jr. to load the bases with one out and walked Trevor Plouffe to bring Longoria home and give the Rays a 4-0 lead. Brach was replaced by Mike Wright who proceeded to walk Casali to make the score 5-0.

Mallex Smith's sacrifice fly to center scored Souza Jr. to complete the five-run outburst.

NOTES: Rays pitchers struck out 18. ... Rays OF Kevin Kiermaier (sickness) was held out of Sunday's game. ... Orioles OF Adam Jones did not play Sunday opting to rest his sore legs. ... Rays C Curt Casali's last home run came on September 27, 2016 against the Chicago White Sox off Chris Sale. ... The announced attendance Sunday was 16,018. The Rays drew 1,253,619 this season.