Tonight at 7:10 p.m. ET, two American League East division rivals square off in a game with plenty of playoff implications as the Baltimore Orioles (81-71) open up a four-game set with the Tampa Bay Rays (83-69) at Tropicana Field in Florida. The game can be live streamed here. Orioles fans can hear all the action by tuning in to 1090 WBAL while Rays fans can do the same at WDAE 620.
The Rays are coming off a four-game series split with the Texas Rangers, with whom they share identical records atop the American League Wild Card standings. The Orioles failed to sweep their division rival Boston Red Sox Thursday night, but did take two out of three despite their loss Thursday allowing the Sox to clinch a postseason berth.
Baltimore sits just two games out of the two Wild Card spots, but are also competing with the Cleveland Indians, who are a half-game behind the Rays and Rangers, and the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees who are looking up at Baltimore and Cleveland as the season begins to wind down. Both teams need all the wins they can get.
Baltimore will send Jason Hammel (7-8, 5.12 ERA) to the mound while 2012 AL Cy Young Award winner David Price (8-8, 3.42) toes the rubber for the Rays.
Baltimore first baseman Chris Davis knows the team needs to focus on the task at hand if it wants to advance to the postseason like it did last year when Baltimore defeated the Rangers in Texas in the one-off Wild Card game to advance to the playoffs.
"I think we know what's going on with the Rays, and the fact that there's another Wild Card team out there makes things more interesting," Davis told MLB.com. "This is definitely what they wanted when they threw in another Wild Card. But we just have to go out there every day and focus on the nine innings in front of us and that's helped us the last few days, just knowing we have to go out there and focus on nine innings."
Davis is first in the majors in homers this year with 51, an Orioles single-season record, and is also tied for first with the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera for the lead in RBIs with 134. Davis is first in the league with a .641 slugging percentage and his 1.013 OPS ranks second in the majors.
Price knows what lies ahead of him in facing Davis and the Orioles lineup, and coming off of a win in his last outing against Minnesota, he's confident he has what it takes to shut them down.
"It's big. If they come in here and beat me up, that has them feeling good going against everybody else after me," Price told MLB.com. "If I can come out here and throw the way I expect to, it might put a little doubt in their mind and give us some confidence. That's what we need. We need a head of steam. It's the team that's playing the best at the end of the year and we still have enough time to get hot. We just need to continue to play better."
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