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Rays blank Orioles to clinch third place in East

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Evan Longoria and Logan Morrison homered Friday night and the Tampa Bay Rays clinched third place in the AL East with a 7-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

Longoria led off the fifth with his 20th homer off Baltimore starter Wade Miley, marking Longoria’s fifth straight 20-homer season and the ninth of his 10-year career.

Morrison hit his 38th homer off reliever Chris Tillman in the seventh.

Rays starter Jake Odorizzi left his final start of the season after four innings with a sore right knee.

Brad Boxberger (4-4) got the win as the first of four Tampa Bay relievers.

Miley (8-15) lost his fifth straight start, giving up four runs and five hits in four innings. He walked five, raising his major league-leading total to 93. The Baltimore bullpen gave up five more walks.

Trey Mancini had one of Baltimore’s four hits. It was Mancini’s 158th hit, tying Cal Ripken (1982) for second-place all-time among Oriole rookies.

The Orioles, shut out for the 11th time, lost for the 17th time in 21 games and dropped three games behind Tampa Bay with two games left in the season.

LONGORIA JOINS MATHEWS IN 3B POWER CLUB

Longoria became only the second third baseman to hit 20 home runs in nine of his first 10 seasons. Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews did it in each of his first 14 seasons (1952-65). Only one other AL third baseman (Graig Nettles) has had nine 20-homer seasons at any point in his career.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Orioles: INF Tim Beckham (hamstring) was back in the lineup after missing three games. … OF Adam Jones did not play because of leg soreness.

Rays: OF Kevin Kiermaier “caught a bug in New York and it drained him pretty good,” according to manager Kevin Cash. Kiermaier sat out a second straight game.

UP NEXT

RHP Chris Archer (9-12) will get his major league-leading 34th start of the season for the Rays on Saturday night against RHP Miguel Castro (3-2), who will get his first start for the Orioles after 38 relief appearances.

Republished with permission from the Associated Press.

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