BALTIMORE -- There didn’t seem to be any doubt on the mound, at the plate or in the Rays’ dugout that Jackson Holliday swung at Freddy Peralta’s 2-2 changeup in the fifth inning Friday night at Camden Yards.
It was even more obvious that what happened next swung the outcome of the Rays’ series-opening 5-3 loss to the Orioles, continuing a rough stretch that has shrunk Tampa Bay’s American League East lead over the Yankees to only three games.
With the Rays ahead by one run, runners on the corners and one out in the fifth, Peralta fell behind Holliday by firing two pitches outside the zone. Holliday promptly fouled off the next two pitches to even the count. Then Peralta delivered another changeup down and away from Holliday, out of the zone but tempting enough for Holliday to offer at it.
The Rays were convinced that Holliday swung. Even Holliday seemed to believe he struck out, as he turned and started walking back to the Orioles’ dugout.
But home-plate umpire Vic Carapazza pointed down to third-base umpire Dillon Wilson, who spread his arms wide to signal that Holliday had checked his swing.
“I think it was very obvious that he crossed the [plane],” Peralta said. “Even he knew, because he was on the way to the dugout.”
Rays manager Kevin Cash immediately expressed his displeasure with the call, which got him ejected by Wilson. Cash came onto the field to further argue the ruling after being tossed for the first time this season, but it was too late.
Asked what he saw in that situation, Cash responded, “Do I really need to answer that?”
Indeed, everyone’s reaction seemed to say plenty.
“Everybody besides [Wilson], it looked like, seemed to think that he went. Our dugout erupted,” shortstop Taylor Walls said. “He was walking back to the dugout with, it looked like, 100 percent knowing he was going to be called out, but [the umpire] thought different.”
Peralta said he appreciated Cash arguing on his behalf, because he knew he had to maintain his composure on the mound. Still, he said the call “100 percent” changed the way the inning unfolded.
“We’ll never know,” Cash said.
Rather than striking out for the second out of the inning, Holliday returned to the batter’s box and lifted Peralta’s next pitch to center fielder Jonny DeLuca for a game-tying sacrifice fly. That brought Pete Alonso to the plate.
After being on the wrong end of his own disputed call Wednesday night, Alonso made sure the Orioles came out on the right side of this one. The right-handed slugger launched Peralta’s 2-2 fastball out to left-center field for a tiebreaking two-run homer.
Peralta said he should have made a better pitch, but the low heater was more or less where he wanted to throw it.
“One of the best hitters in the game,” Peralta said. “We were competing on that pitch, but he was able to [do] damage on that one.”
After seeing Peralta fling fastballs at their lineup in his last start, the Orioles took an aggressive approach against him in the early innings. They scored one run on the first two pitches he threw, then Dylan Beavers homered on Peralta’s first pitch of the second inning.
Aside from those at-bats and the decisive sequence in the fifth, Peralta continued to show signs of improvement in his fourth start with the Rays. He struck out six, walked just one batter and completed a season-high-tying seven innings, which should better set up Tampa Bay’s staff for the rest of this critical road trip.
The highlight of the night was the performance of rookie catcher Kenny Piper, who caught Colton Cowser stealing, worked an 11-pitch at-bat in one plate appearance and crushed his first Major League homer to give the Rays a 3-1 lead in the second inning.
“Typically, I'm the kind of player that's a cool cucumber, and I don't show a lot of emotion,” Piper said. “But I think I shouted a little bit when I saw it go out, so that was a lot of fun.”
But the Rays will need more than that to stall their descent toward the pack of AL contenders. They’ve lost six of their last eight since a perfect nine-game trip out west, and their lineup managed just one hit and a walk against starter Trevor Rogers and relievers Andrew Kittredge and Rico Garcia after the third inning Friday night.
“I think just not everybody's putting it all together at the same time. It happens,” Walls said. “It's happened this year. You’ve got to find ways out. … All three areas, we've got to be a little bit better. It's almost September, so the race is getting tighter. So we're gonna have to pick it up.”