Rays get walked off for a 2nd straight day, this time by Orioles

BALTIMORE - The Rays did enough to win Monday's eventful holiday matinee, rallying to take a lead in the 11th, 12th and 13th innings.

But they didn't do enough to not lose it, allowing the Orioles to repeatedly answer back and eventually prevail with a 9-7 victory.

"The offense, they gave us multiple chances to win the game (Monday). We didn't do our job on the pitching side. I lost two of those innings; it's frustrating," said reliever Jesse Scholtens, who gave up the final five runs.

After going more than a month without losing consecutive games, the Rays - who still have one of the majors' top records at 34-17 - were walked off for a second straight day.

Sunday, it happened at Yankee Stadium when Aaron Judge delivered the only runs of the day with a two-run homer in the ninth.

Monday seemed more frustrating given all the chances the Rays had to end it before Colton Cowser hit a two-run homer with one out in the 13th.

"Just didn't capitalize on opportunities to seal the deal," said Rays outfielder Cedric Mullins, the long-time Oriole making his first trip back to Camden Yards. "So I think we're going to learn from this moving forward and make it easier on ourselves next time."

The game started relatively uneventfully with five scoreless innings in a duel between Rays lefty Shane McClanahan and Orioles righty Kyle Bradish, who were both facing the same team in consecutive outings.

The Rays took a 1-0 lead in the sixth on Jonathan Aranda's ninth homer.

The Orioles took advantage of some Rays sloppiness in the seventh - an errant pickoff throw by reliever Hunter Bigge, a more errant throw from rightfield by Victor Mesa Jr., for two of the season-high four errors - to take a 2-1 lead.

"You're in tight games, you've got to limit your mistakes, and early on we just didn't do that very well," Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

The Rays tied it in the eighth when Yandy Diaz got to third on a double and an error, and Richie Palacios singled in pinch-runner Oliver Dunn.

Then things got really wild in the 11th.

A positive way to look at it was how the Rays rallied to take a lead in three straight innings.

"That's who we are as a team," catcher Nick Fortes said. "Obviously, we'd love to come out on top, so it's frustrating. But I mean, we're never going to stop fighting. That's just the brand of baseball that we play, so we'll come back (Tuesday) and do the same thing."

The reality is that they didn't do enough.

"Yeah, we came up short (Monday), but sometimes it's just the way the game goes," Mullins said. "But I liked the competitive nature that we had out there, like the fact that we kept digging deep, kept digging deep every single inning, tried to make things happen. Just didn't work out."

"I'm proud of the guys, the way they went about that game," Cash said. "There was a lot of back and forth, and both teams did everything they could to win. We just came up on the short end of the stick. Appreciate Scholty's efforts, for sure."

The Rays took a 4-2 lead in the 11th on a loud 421-foot two-run homer by Mesa, a February trade acquisition from Miami who was called up Sunday to replace the injured Jonny DeLuca. He definitely enjoyed his second career big-league blast.

But lefty Ian Seymour couldn't hold the lead, thanks in part to a bad bounce.

The O's got one when Tampa native Pete Alonso singled to left, scoring Adley Rutschman, and advanced to second as Chandler Simpson's throw hit Rutschman's foot. That mattered as Alonso was then in position to score on Jeremiah Jackson's single to left.

The Rays went back ahead in the 12th as the speedy Simpson moved to third on a Junior Caminero fly-out and scored on a sac fly by Aranda, extending his AL-leading RBI total to 30.

The O's got even again off Scholtens after a convoluted sequence, the run scoring, eventually, as Gunnar Henderson grounded a ball to first and Cowser beat Aranda's throw home as he collided with Fortes.

Complicating the play, Cowser was initially called out and as Fortes stayed on the ground after twisting his left wrist, Henderson advanced to third.

First, Rays manager Kevin Cash went to the umpires to question Henderson advancing with Fortes down, and the umps huddled and sent Henderson back to first.

"Usually when a guy's laying on the ground hurt, you don't let them just circle the bases," said Fortes, who stayed in the game and said he was OK.

Then the Orioles challenged the call and replay showed Cowser was safe.

"Johnny made a nice play, came home with it. I slapped the tag down as hard as I could, and he just got in there," Fortes said.

The Rays then looked positioned for the storybook ending as Mullins singled in the go-ahead run in the 13th. A sac fly by Fortes made it 7-5.

But Scholtens failed to hold it.

Leody Taveras rapped a leadoff double to score one run, then went to third on a single. That mattered as Jackson Holliday delivered the tying run with a sac fly, adding to Scholtens' frustration.

"I was obviously looking to kind of limit the movement of the runner there," Scholtens said. "He was able to get to it a little bit better than I was hoping."

The biggest blow obviously was the last one, Cowser driving a 2-1 cutter 425 feet and over the right-centerfield wall.

"I‘m proud of the guys, the way they went about that game," Cash said. "There was a lot of back and forth, and both teams did everything they could to win. We just came up on the short end of the stick."

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 6:16 PM.