ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Even after his team nearly blew a big lead, Baltimore manager Buck Showalter was feeling good.
Adam Jones drove in two with a double during a four-run first inning, and the Orioles hung on to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-5 Tuesday night.
"Not tough at all when you win," Showalter said when asked how it was getting through the game. "[When it's] 6-0, nobody thinks the game is over by any chance. We know them. They're going to play hard and keep trying."
Steve Pearce homered for the second straight game, a two-run drive that made it 6-0 in the second for the Orioles, who won Monday's opener 6-2. Pearce, from nearby Lakeland, Fla., has five homers in his last 11 games at Tropicana Field.
Baltimore's Chris Davis went 0-for-3, including an eighth-inning fly to the warning track, and was hit by a pitch as the designated hitter in his return after a 25-game suspension for a positive amphetamine test. Showalter said Davis will play first base in Wednesday night's series finale.
"The first couple at-bats I was pretty fired up," Davis said. "I was overswinging a little bit. As the game progressed I settled down a little bit. Took some better swings. Definitely a little rusty, but felt good to be back in there."
Tampa Bay got two-run homers from Logan Forsythe and Kevin Kiermaier.
Forsythe cut the deficit to 6-3 with a home run that culminated an 11-pitch at-bat in the fourth against Wei-Yin Chen, who allowed three runs and four hits in 4⅓ innings.
