BALTIMORE _ It was a night when the Orioles could not afford to forget what they do well and remember what they don't.
They needed badly to hold serve against the last-place Tampa Bay Rays after the first-place Boston Red Sox won earlier in the afternoon. But Chris Davis committed a key error in the eighth inning and the Rays scored two unearned runs to ease their way to a 5-2 victory before 27,823 on Saturday night at Camden Yards.
Starting pitcher Chris Tillman threw well for five innings after the Orioles took an early two-run lead. But the offense sputtered in the middle innings and left the door wide open for a Rays comeback that included another big home run by Evan Longoria, who has hit one in every game of the series.
Tillman (16-6) lost after finishing with three earned runs on four hits and a walk in 5 2/3 innings. He struck out six.
So, in a four-game home series that was considered a soft spot in the Orioles' September schedule after they played so well against contending competition on their last road trip, it is the Rays who are guaranteed at least a split going into a series finale Sunday that features slumping Baltimore starter Wade Miley.
The Orioles (81-67) have fallen to three games behind the Red Sox in the American League East and are in danger of falling further right in time to face Boston in a four-game series that begins at Camden Yards on Monday. The Orioles can say that their task is still in front of them, but if they head into that series three or four games out, the Red Sox will be in a position to knock them too far off the pace to have any realistic chance of winning the AL East.
The Orioles also picked a bad time to forget how to attack Rays starter Matt Andriese. In his five career appearances against them before Saturday, he was 0-3 and had allowed 13 earned runs in 122/3 innings (9.24 ERA), but he tied them in knots this time.
It didn't start out that way. Adam Jones opened the first inning with a double and scored on a one-out sacrifice fly to right field by Manny Machado. After that, the Orioles scored just one more run off Andriese _ on two singles and a sacrifice fly.
