TAMPA – Eight runs on seven hits. 

That was the line for the Baltimore Orioles tonight in the second inning alone. 

Twelve runs on 18 hits. 

That was the line for the Tampa Bay Rays tonight in innings three through seven.  

It culminated in a 12-8 Orioles loss, a tale of two games that the Orioles found themselves on the wrong end of. A contest that had the makings of a blowout still resulted in a victory with a comfortable margin, but not for the team that had an 8-0 advantage after two. 

"It’s a tough game," Tony Mansolino said. "It hurts. This one really hurts. We’ve got to bounce back and figure out how to win that game."

The Orioles' barrage started in unassuming fashion. All-Star hopeful Ryan O’Hearn drew a five-pitch walk. Gary Sánchez followed with a hard-hit single. Then, the flood gates began to open. 

In a two-strike count, as it was for his home run last night, Colton Cowser drove a splitter to center for a three-run home run. It was his fourth home run since returning from the injured list. Two batters later, Cedric Mullins hit a solo shot, his 12th longball of the year, and Baltimore led 4-0. 

The next three batters reached, scoring another run, and that brought Ramón Laureano to the dish. In an inning that would’ve made Earl Weaver smile, Laureano delivered yet another three-run home run, putting the O’s up 8-0. 

"We jumped on them early, That’s a pretty good pitcher out there, Taj Bradley, so good at-bats to jump on them early," Mansolino said. 

On a scale of one to Tempur-pedic, that’s a nice cushion. 

On the other hand, though, an offensive outburst in one inning has some side effects. Specifically, it forces your starting pitcher to wait a very long time before re-entering the game. 

"I was doing some plyo-warmups a couple of times, just trying to keep myself ready," Trevor Rogers said after the game. "At the end of the day, I just gotta do a better job. Guys give me an eight-run lead, I just gotta do a better job of attacking the strike zone."

Rogers cruised through his first inning of work with a fastball sitting around 95 mph. He got through the frame with 19 pitches, 15 of which were strikes. 

In the second, though, things got dicey. 

After a long time in the dugout, Rogers didn’t look nearly as sharp. The lefty allowed a single and walked two batters to load the bases, but did escape the jam. The 36-pitch inning was a laborious one, to say the least. 

The third inning brought more challenges. Rogers walked the first batter he saw on four pitches, one of which was a fastball with some noticeably diminished velocity. Three of the next four batters he faced delivered hits and plated three runs, and that would be the night for Rogers. 

"I was talking to (pitching coach Drew) French about it. I think I was just trying to do too much with two strikes," he said. "Trying to make the perfect pitch. Again, looking back at it now, I had an eight-run lead, I have a lot more margin of error to go with."

It certainly wasn’t the return to the big league mound that he was hoping for, but any evaluation of his outing requires a lot of context. An extended half-inning on the bench, while giving a pitcher a very comfortable lead to work with, also makes it incredibly difficult to maintain adrenaline and rhythm. That led to a 36-pitch inning on the mound, which can snowball into bad results later on. In the records department, that one goes down as “weird."

"Personally, regardless of what the stat line says, I’m really liking where I’m at," Rogers said. "But at the end of the day, it’s about winning games, and a game when your team gives you eight runs, you’ve gotta go out there and do your job. This is a learning moment for me. I’ve gotta do better. That’s it, just gotta do better."

Things didn’t get less stressful for Orioles pitching after Rogers came out, though. 

In the fourth, reliever Scott Blewett surrendered a triple and an RBI-single as the Rays cut the lead to 8-4. Jonathan Aranda just missed a three-run home run, too, flying out 393 feet to center field. 

Momentum is a fickle thing, and the Orioles weren't able to recapture it. 

"You’re just trying to solve problems, right? So you’re not thinking about what just happened. You’re thinking about what’s next and how we’re going to get through this," Mansolino said.

"Even though I haven’t done this at this level, I’ve sat in the dugout and in the minor league a lot and been a part of those games both good and bad, so you understand you don’t worry about what just happened, you just constantly try to figure out solutions and solve the problem at hand."

In the fifth Tampa Bay added some more. Taylor Walls brought a run home on his triple and scored himself one batter later on a single from Yandy Díaz. 

Just like that, an 8-0 lead after two innings became an 8-6 lead in the fifth. A game that could’ve gotten out of hand became one firmly in reach for the Rays. 

It only got worse from there. 

Pinch-hitter Brandon Lowe launched a two-run home run on a Yennier Cano fastball that caught too much of the plate. A bullpen that had been one of the best in baseball in the month of June had suddenly allowed five earned runs in just 2 ⅓ innings of work. 

After an eight-run second inning that put the Orioles up 8-0, the game was tied at eight after five innings. 

Things settled down for just a bit, but the Rays came back for more in the seventh. 

Andrew Kittredge retired the first two batters he saw in the inning, but things unraveled from there. The results of the next five hitters were as follows: single, walk, single, single, single. After the dust settled, the Rays had taken the lead and put up four more runs. Through seven innings, they had compiled a dozen runs on 18 hits.

"Just a tough day," Kittredge said. "Sometimes that happens. Unfortunately, it comes when we have an eight-run lead. Yeah, just a tough day. A lot of soft contact. They put together some really good at-bats, made us pay when it mattered. We’ve just got to come back and get ‘em tomorrow." 

The game had the makings of a huge one for the Orioles. A chance to gain some more ground in the standings and get back to single-digit games under .500 for the first time in a long time. Instead, it was a loss that's tough to swallow, one in which the Orioles had to use plenty of high-leverage bullpen arms. The Birds' bats didn't produce a hit after the second inning, either.  

It was a frustrating loss, to say the least. 

"Yeah, not much to say on that one," Mullins said. "That's a tough loss. Definitely one you want to flush as soon as possible. Get back at it tomorrow."

The important thing now is finding a way to respond tomorrow with a chance to split the series. 

"Some of those losses in the past hurt a little more because we felt like it might leak into some things," Mullins said. "But I feel like the guys are, you know, confident. What we're trying to do is just continue to stack long wins. Didn't go our way today whatsoever."

His interim skipper echoed that sentiment. 

"It’s going to be a battle, one way or another, and then once we get out of here, we go to New York and that’s going to be a battle," Mansolino said. "So, you know, guys aren’t happy right now. They aren’t happy with this, by any means. They’ll digest it, they’ll move on, they’ll be ready to move on tomorrow."