Rays back in first-place tie: 'It feels really, really good'

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays played nearly 100 games this season while claiming sole possession of first place in the American League East standings. They let the Orioles spend only one day alone at the top.

Starter Zach Eflin bounced back from his worst start of the season by pitching seven outstanding innings, shutting down the Orioles’ lineup and snapping the Rays’ five-game losing streak with a 3-0 win on Friday night before a crowd of 19,703 at Tropicana Field.

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“It feels really, really good. Really good. We had a good time postgame in the clubhouse,” Eflin said. “It's something that we did for a really long time to begin the year, so it's nice to get back to that and enjoy each other and have fun. We'll take that momentum into tomorrow and just keep having fun.”

Eflin allowed five runs in three innings against the Royals on Sunday as he battled his mechanics throughout an outing that made him want to “flush it down the toilet and move on to the next one.” And move on he did, putting together one of his best starts in a Rays uniform to pull Tampa Bay (61-40) back even in the standings with Baltimore (59-38).

It was the kind of victory the Rays needed after dropping 12 of their first 15 games in July. They gave Eflin an early lead, as Brandon Lowe doubled and scored on a second-inning single by Harold Ramírez, then added big solo shots from their two leading home run hitters this season: Isaac Paredes and Jose Siri.

“At this point, I think we'll take any win that we could get,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Hopefully, that gets some momentum and gets the bats some momentum going into the rest of the series.”

Eflin insisted there was nothing different about this outing, but there was one key similarity: He could tell how it would play out during his pregame bullpen session. His delivery felt off in the Kauffman Stadium bullpen, and that followed him into the game. He felt strong warming up on Friday night, and his performance reflected that.

“It's as easy as flushing it, in my mind,” said Eflin, who improved to 11-5 with a 3.36 ERA and 0.99 WHIP on the season, tied for the Major League lead and matching his career high in wins. “I don't like overthinking things. I don't like overanalyzing things. So for me, it was just flush it down the toilet and move on.”

Eflin allowed only two hits and one walk while striking out eight. He faced 24 batters and ran up a three-ball count against only two of them, needing only 87 pitches (63 strikes) to get through the outing.

Each of his first five strikeouts came on sinkers that were called for strikes, then he racked up three more swinging strikeouts on his four-seam fastball, curveball and sinker to punctuate his outing.

“He didn’t leave a whole lot of balls in the middle part of the plate for us,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “We just had a tough time getting anything going against him.”

Eflin credited catcher Christian Bethancourt for his game-calling behind the plate and said his sinker was “finally” working. It had been weeks since he had that level of command of the pitch, Eflin said, especially inside to left-handed hitters.

It came back on Friday and helped neutralize Baltimore’s lineup as Tampa Bay recorded its 10th shutout of the season.

“Didn't seem like he missed a location all night long,” Cash said. “When you do that with his stuff, you're going to give yourself a good chance to have success, and that was a big, big start for us.”

Not that Eflin needed any more run support, but the Rays tacked on a pair of homers for their 43rd multihomer game of the season.

Paredes, who hit a double to the deepest part of the park in center field in the fourth inning, blasted his 18th home run of the year out to left-center off Orioles starter Kyle Bradish in the sixth. Known for pulling all of his homers since joining the Rays, Paredes heard about his near-miss before returning to his favorite destination.

“All the coaches were telling me that I don't have pop to center field. That's why they say to pull the ball,” Paredes said, smiling, through interpreter Manny Navarro. “So that's why it was good that I was able to pull that home run.”

Siri tacked on his team-leading 20th homer in the seventh, launching a first-pitch, 99.4 mph fastball from Shintaro Fujinami out to left field and, as usual, watching it fly.

“It feels good to be able to get a game like this, especially after what we've been going through,” Siri said through Navarro. “Especially because they are a team that's in our division and we're both battling for first place.”