ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ There's just something about Joey Rickard and the Tampa Bay Rays.
Rickard paced the Orioles to a 6-5, 11-inning victory against his former organization Thursday at Tropicana Field as Baltimore salvaged the finale of the three-game series. His 11th-inning double scored Chris Davis, who singled with two outs in the frame after entering in the eighth as a defensive replacement.
Rickard, an outfielder who the Orioles selected from Tampa Bay in the 2015 Rule 5 draft, has a career .311/.336/.566 hitting line in 36 career games against the Rays, who took him in the ninth round of the 2012 draft.
He reached base five times Thursday, once more than he had done so in his previous 32 plate appearances entering the game. An infield single in the second snapped an 0-for-15 skid for Rickard, who dove headfirst into the bag to beat Rays opener Hunter Wood in a footrace.
He beat out another ground ball to second base in the third with runners on the corners and two outs, producing an RBI for the first time since March 31, and walked in the fifth.
Rickard led off the seventh with a triple high off the right-field wall, narrowly missing what would have been his seventh home run against the Rays. His most against any other organization is three.
Rickard came home on a hard Richie Martin single. Martin, who attended the University of Florida and Bloomingdale High School in nearby Valrico, had about 20 friends and family members in attendance as he delivered his first career RBI, but he tried to turn Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier's wild throw home into a two-base error and was caught in a rundown between second and third.
Rickard wasn't the only Oriole with a strong showing at the plate. Trey Mancini reached base four times, with his third-inning double giving him 13 extra-base hits, the second most in the American League. The man batting behind Mancini, Dwight Smith Jr., climbed up a league leaderboard, as well. He followed Mancini's double with a single off Rays left-hander Jalen Beeks for his ninth hit off a lefty; that ranks first in the AL for a left-handed batter. He added a sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Catcher Pedro Severino followed a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play in the bottom of the third with his first home run as an Oriole in the top of the fourth. The ball traveled a projected 426 feet, the third longest by a Baltimore batter this season.
For the second time in the series, Avisail Garcia crushed a home run to dead center. The latter came in Thursday's ninth inning, a projected 447-foot shot in Tropicana Field's catwalk to tie the game against Mychal Givens. The ball stayed in the catwalk, the sixth in the dome stadium's history to do so.
Givens was pursuing what would've been the Orioles' first five-out save in a one-run game since Zack Britton did so June 14, 2016. Givens entered after Mike Zunino brought the Rays within a run with a two-run double off Evan Phillips in the eighth and retired the next two batters to end the frame, pumping his fist after Daniel Robertson's drive to right landed in Rickard's glove.
Willy Adames struck out to start the ninth, but Garcia sent a full-count, 96 mph fastball up high above the center-field scoreboard to tie the game at five, triumphantly tossing his bat toward the Rays' dugout.
Tommy Pham followed with a single, his fourth hit of the game, and advanced to second on a wild pitch, but Givens caught him leaving early toward third for the second out before striking out Ji-Man Choi.
Garcia's homer left right-hander Andrew Casher, who limited the Rays to two runs in five innings and struck out more batters (six) than he walked (one) for the first time this season, with a no-decision.
Left-hander John Means, moved to the bullpen in preparation for Alex Cobb's return to the rotation Friday, pitched both extra innings for Baltimore, striking out the side in the 10th as well as Garcia in the 11th with the tying run on first to end the game.
Renato Nunez, who has spent most of his time playing the field in the major leagues at third base, learned Thursday that first base presents its own set of challenges.
With Davis still battling an illness, Nunez drew his second career start at first base, the other coming Wednesday. Austin Meadows led off the bottom of the first with a double off the wall, and Pham drove him with a 108.7 mph single off Nunez's glove.
Zunino reached to start the second on an error by Nunez, who couldn't corral a 103.2 mph grounder right at him. Another hot shot off Pham's bat, this one at 101.8 mph, went off Nunez's glove, but Orioles starter Andrew Cashner ended the threat, and his outing, with a full-count strikeout of Choi.
To Nunez's credit, he kept hitting. The Orioles' designated hitter in 16 of their first 18 games, Nunez got them got the board with an RBI single in the second.
