BALTIMORE — The Rays had a lot going for them entering Friday’s game.
They were on a pretty good roll. They were playing an Orioles team they had already beaten 15 times this season. And they had their top starter, Shane McClanahan, on the mound.
That combination, plus some dazzling defense and a three-run seventh-inning homer by Mike Zunino that was his 27th of the season, were enough to give them a 6-3 win.
McClanahan worked six innings. The offense got three runs in the first before O’s starter Matt Harvey settled down, then the three late. Shortstop Wander Franco and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier led the defensive show.
The Rays won for the fifth straight time, improving their American League-best record to 80-48 and ensuring they at least will maintain a four-game East division lead over the Yankees, who played later at Oakland.
And with games remaining Saturday and Sunday, the Rays improved to 16-1 against the Orioles, a team record for most wins in a season against a single opponent.
The Rays got off to a good start, scoring three in the first off Harvey, and all after two were out.
Franco got them started with a walk, extending his on-base streak to 27 games, matching Tigers great Al Kaline for the third longest in AL history, and eighth overall, for players 20 and younger.
Franco moved to third on an Austin Meadows single, then scored on a Yandy Diaz hit. A Joey Wendle single loaded the bases. Manuel Margot thought he walked on a 3-1 pitch, but home plate umpire Bill Miller disagreed. So Margot slapped the next pitch to center for a two-run single.
The three runs were all the Rays got, as Harvey struck out Kiermaier to end the first, then retired 15 in a row over the next five innings.
McClanahan got off to a good start himself, but got into trouble in the fourth. He allowed two runs, giving up a one-out single to Trey Mancini and a two-out homer to Austin Hays on a full-count slider. Another single and a bad-bounce double by Pedro Severino, with the ball hitting the third base bag and going over Joey Wendle’s head, gave the O’s a chance for more, but McClanahan struck out Jahmai Jones to keep the 3-2 lead.
Tanner Scott replaced Harvey in the seventh, and the Rays quicky expanded their lead.
With one out, Margot was hit by a pitch, Kiermaier drew a full-count walk and Zunino launched a ball over the center-field fence, making it a 6-2 margin.
The Rays had an impressive night in the field. Franco made several dazzling plays at short, the highlight a leaping grab of a Ryan Mountcastle liner in the fourth. And Kiermaier did a Kiermaier thing in the fifth, leaping high at the wall to rob Mountcastle of a two-run homer.
