Rays get ahead early in victory

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The Tampa Bay Rays got to Francisco Liriano early, then had to come back and score some more runs in the late innings Friday night.

Evan Longoria homered during a five-run first inning against a wild Liriano and Corey Dickerson and Logan Morrison combined to go 4for-4 off the bench for the Rays, who had 13 hits and drew seven walks in a 10-8 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

“It’s good for our starting pitchers to know we can come back and be resilient,” said Steven Souza Jr., who drove in two runs with a double. “Everybody’s clicking. Corey and (Morrison) getting those clutch hits — that’s something that didn’t really happen last year.”

Liriano faced only eight batters, walking four and giving up three hits before getting pulled.

It was the shortest start of Liriano’s career and only the second time in 257 starts that he failed to finish the first inning.

“I didn’t make any pitches. I was kind of lost out there, probably tried to do too much,” he said. “I didn’t make the pitches when I had to.”

The Blue Jays rallied for a 76 lead, but Tampa Bay overtook them by scoring three times in the sixth with the help of Souza’s double.

Brad Miller and Derek Norris also drove in two runs each for the Rays.

Xavier Cedeno (1-0) won despite giving up a basesloaded walk to Troy Tulowitzki that put the Blue Jays ahead in the sixth. Alex Colome got four outs to earn his third save.

“It wasn’t by any means the prettiest game, but (I was) really impressed by some big hits, the timely hitting,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

J.P. Howell (0-1) took the loss.

Josh Donaldson and Tulowitzki hit their first home runs for Toronto.

“It’s one of those games,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “It’s a tough one to lose because we had the lead late, but we’ll move on.”

The game started on time despite a late arrival by the umpiring crew. The four umps needed a police escort after a fire shut down a highway, and they got to Tropicana Field just 42 minutes before the first pitch.

The Rays’ five-run first included Daniel Robertson’s first major league hit, a single. Longoria connected for his second homer.

Tulowitzki drove in four runs. He hit a two-run double in the first off Matt Andriese, his first hit of the season after an 0-for-13 start.