ST. PETERSBURG -- Shane McClanahan stood in front of his locker late Monday night, and for the first time in a month, he had to look back on a start in which he allowed a run.
Not that it really mattered on a night like this.
“I picked a pretty good night to give up runs for the first time in a while,” McClanahan said, grinning.
The Rays have had plenty of good days at the plate this season. But they hadn’t had a game like Monday’s all-around display of dominant offense in a 16-6 win over the Orioles at Tropicana Field.
They set season-high marks for runs, hits (18) and extra-base hits (eight) while tying their season-high walk total (seven). It was the Rays’ highest-scoring game since they also put up 16 against the Astros last May 31, and their highest-scoring game at Tropicana Field since a 16-1 win over the Yankees on April 19, 2014.
They batted around twice, one in the second inning and again in the sixth. They had four multi-run innings for the second time this season. The runs came early and often, and just about everyone got in on the action.
“What can I say? I mean, we have good batters,” DH Yandy Díaz said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “That's all I've got to say.”
By the end of the night, with a group of bare-chested, shirt-waving fans in the left-field corner joining the “Tarps Off” movement, the Rays had forced the Orioles to send infielder Weston Wilson to the mound as they won for the 19th time in 23 games to improve their American League-leading record to 31-15.
They can do it with small ball. They can do it with big swings by Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Díaz. As Caminero said, “Whatever we need to play is the type of baseball that we're going to play.”
“You're going to have to find ways to score runs. Sometimes it's going to come with contact and putting the ball in play, and then some days you need those big gap shots or home runs with guys on base,” manager Kevin Cash said. “And tonight, we definitely got those.”
Díaz had four hits and tied his career-high marks with four RBIs and four runs. Caminero crushed his 13th home run, a three-run shot in the fifth inning. Shortstop Taylor Walls extended his hitting streak to a career-high seven games, picking up two hits and scoring three runs.
Platoon-hitting outfielder Ryan Vilade went 3-for-3 with three RBIs, and center fielder Jonny DeLuca drove in three runs. Those two have played significant roles in boosting the team’s production against left-handed pitchers like the Orioles’ Trevor Rogers, who was knocked out of the game in the fourth inning after surrendering eight runs (seven earned).
“Excuse my French,” Rogers told reporters, “but [the Rays] beat my ass tonight.”
After four straight shutout starts, McClanahan finally surrendered a run on an Adley Rutschman single in the third inning. The left-hander’s career-best scoreless streak came to an end after 23 2/3 innings, the fourth-longest streak in franchise history behind Alex Cobb (24 2/3 IP, 2014), Alex Colomé (24 2/3 IP, 2014-15) and Taj Bradley (24 IP, 2024).
One batter later, he picked up his 500th career strikeout to finish the inning. In the dugout, McClanahan said, pitching coach Kyle Snyder said it was time to start a new streak -- and noted he was only about halfway to Orel Hershiser’s all-time record of 59 scoreless innings.
“I thought maybe I’m, like, close or something, and I go, ‘What was it?’ He goes, ‘50-something,’” McClanahan said, laughing. “And I go, like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know about that one.’”
McClanahan gave up three more in the fifth on a home run by Wilson, two walks and a Pete Alonso double. But he finished the inning to earn his fifth win of the season, and he had no complaints afterward.
The way the Rays are rolling, how could he?
“I think tonight was a good glimpse of, if we're firing, what we can do,” McClanahan said. “Hopefully we keep this momentum rolling tomorrow, the next day and hopefully the rest of the year. If we keep putting up 16 like that, I'm going to have a lot of fun on the mound.”
With an eight-run lead after five innings, the Rays put the game in the hands of Chase Solesky, who pitched three innings and limited the bullpen usage to one other reliever in his long-awaited Major League debut.
“Picked us up in a big way,” Cash said of Solesky. “I know the game was separated, but we’re going to win a game down the road from avoiding maybe having to pitch some guys. … Pumped for him.”