Cashner gets support, then O’s pour it on
Orioles starter Andrew Cashner got a little more run support than usual Friday night, and it finally turned out to be enough.
Cashner pitched solid six innings and got rewarded with his first victory in more than two months when the Orioles defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, 15-5, in a rain-delayed game before an announced 15,649 at Camden Yards.
The Orioles (30-74) scored only four of those 15 runs while Cashner was on the mound, which might not seem like that much, but it was the first time he had left a game with more than three runs on the scoreboard since he defeated the New York Yankees on April 5 at Yankee Stadium. Before Friday night, the only other game he had won this season was May 21 at the Chicago White Sox.
And before Friday night, the only other time he had won a game at Oriole Park was … never.
It wasn’t until after the Rays (53-51) threatened to come back and cost Cashner that unprecedented decision that the Orioles ambushed the visitors’ bullpen in an eight-run seventh inning that removed all doubt.
It wasn’t until after that that the Rays were reduced to pitching a couple of position players — right fielder Carlos Gómez and catcher Jesús Sucre — to turn the game into a mockery.
Trade-deadline darling Adam Jones was the main man in this rare double-digit offensive performance, driving in the first Orioles run of the game with an RBI single in the first inning and launching a three-run homer in the seventh-inning scorefest.
The home run was his 11th of the season and first since June 2. That raised his season RBI total to 42, which leads the team since Manny Machado was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Jonathan Schoop also had another big night. His home run in the fifth inning gave him a homer in five straight games, tying the major league record for homers in consecutive games by a second baseman. It was the eighth time the feat was accomplished and the first time since Minnesota Twins second baseman Brian Dozier did so in September 2016.
Schoop, whose name also has started to percolate in trade speculation, remains on an incredible July tear with three run-scoring hits in the game. Along with the home run, he had two RBI singles in the seventhinning bat-around.
For once, Cashner could sit back and enjoy the fireworks show. He left with a two-run lead and the Rays narrowed the gap with a run in the top of the seventh, but the Orioles sent 13 men to the plate in the bottom of that inning.
It was Cashner’s 10th quality start of the season, but it was only the second one that earned him a win. He improved to just 3-9 on a season in which he has a respectable 4.33 ERA.
The game would turn into a circus when Rays manager Kevin Cash sent Gómez and Sucre to the mound to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning. The Orioles added three more runs on four walks and an RBI single by pinch hitter Austin Wynns in the eighth. The Rays capped the scoring with two runs in the ninth.