BALTIMORE -- Nine days ago, the Rays found themselves in an 8-0 hole against the Orioles and climbed out of it, matching the largest comeback victory in franchise history with a 12-8 win at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
On a misty Friday night at Camden Yards, the Orioles got their revenge.
It looked like the red-hot Rays would cruise to yet another win after they gave starter Ryan Pepiot a huge cushion with a six-run second inning. But Pepiot surrendered most of that lead in the shortest start of his career and left so frustrated with himself that he spent half the game in the dugout, watching it all unravel.
“It just can't happen. Just not my night,” Pepiot said. “Flush it, move on to the next one.”
By the time the Rays’ 22-8 loss was finally over, shortstop José Caballero had given up a pair of home runs. The Orioles’ 14-run win was the largest by a team in a game it trailed by at least six runs in at least the last 125 seasons.
“They owed us the comeback,” second baseman Brandon Lowe said. “They grinded through some good at-bats off Pep and didn't let off the throttle.”
It was the Rays’ largest blown lead since May 13, 2023, a 9-8 loss to the Yankees in which they led 6-0 in the fifth inning. And it gave way to the Rays allowing a franchise record-tying 22 runs, matching the total they allowed in Boston on July 23, 2002 and a franchise-record 14 extra-base hits.
“It almost doesn't seem right. We've thrown the ball so well for so long,” reliever Eric Orze said. “With the law of averages in baseball, at some point, this is bound to happen. So, hopefully, we got it all out in one game and we just leave it at that.”
The Rays jumped out to a commanding lead with a six-run, three-homer second inning. The way they’ve been going lately, that should have been enough, right? Not so fast.
The Orioles responded with a four-run second that snapped the Rays’ 19-inning scoreless streak. Pepiot gave up four hits and two walks in the second and exited after recording only five outs, Tampa Bay’s second-shortest start of the season and the shortest in his 60 big league appearances.
“They showed why we have so much respect for them,” manager Kevin Cash said. “They were pretty relentless. I mean, every guy we brought in, it felt like they kind of had an answer for.”
Pepiot, who had posted a 1.64 ERA over his previous six starts, said he thought his mechanics were fine, his stuff was normal, and he didn’t let the highest-scoring inning of his young career speed up on him. He just lacked his usual command, and Baltimore made him pay.
When Cash emerged from the dugout to bring in reliever Mason Montgomery, Pepiot appeared to tell Cash he wanted one more batter before handing over the ball.
Cash said he understood that Pepiot wanted to stay in the game but noted the right-hander is “so important to what we're doing and what we're trying to do, and just felt like that was enough” based on his pitch count, which had gone from 10 to 48.
Still, Pepiot bore the brunt of the defeat.
“I was like, 'Let me figure this stuff out,' because I don't want to put the bullpen in that kind of a situation,” Pepiot said. “And I already felt terrible enough that the offense had just gone out there and put up six, and I'd just given four of them back already. Let me wear it. Let me go out there and get this guy out, flush it, leave it at four, and just go the rest as long as I could.”
Baltimore made it a one-run game in the third against Montgomery, and the lone run the Rays scored in the fourth wasn’t enough to withstand another Orioles rally in the fifth. Gary Sánchez ripped a go-ahead, two-run homer to left-center off Orze in a three-run inning, and the Orioles didn’t stop there.
Edwin Uceta gave up three more in the sixth, and the runs kept coming against Forrest Whitley and Paul Gervase. When Gervase gave up a homer to Jackson Holliday in the eighth, making it an eight-run game, Cash pulled the rookie right-hander and moved Caballero from shortstop to the mound, where he allowed six runs in his first professional pitching appearance.
“Nothing's going to change for us just because of one game,” Orze said. “While it's a tough one to swallow, at the end of the day, we're going to wake up tomorrow, be professionals, and we're gonna be back at it.”