September 28, 2010: Price, Rays beat Orioles to clinch second playoff appearance in three seasons

The Tampa Bay Rays reached the World Series in 2008, in their 11th season as a franchise. Two years later, in 2010, the Rays and the New York Yankees contended for the American League East Division title throughout the season. Tampa Bay took over first place on September 24 with a 5-3 win against the Seattle Mariners. Three days later, with a week remaining in the regular season, the Rays held a half-game lead in the division and a six-game edge over the Boston Red Sox for the AL’s wild-card spot.

The Rays’ first chance to clinch a postseason berth came on September 27, but they were shut out by the Baltimore Orioles, 4-0. After only 12,446 fans showed up at Tropicana Field for the Monday night game, pitcher David Price tweeted, “We had a chance to clinch a post-season spot tonight with about 10,000 fans in the stands. … embarrassing.” Third baseman Evan Longoria told reporters that fan support was disappointing and embarrassing.1

Baltimore was in fifth place in the AL East for the third straight year. Manager Dave Trembley had been fired early in the season,2 and former Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Texas Rangers skipper Buck Showalter was hired on July 29. Their win in the series opener in St. Petersburg made the Orioles 30-21 since Showalter took the helm.

After Price’s and Longoria’s gripes about fan support, only 17,891 showed up on Tuesday for the second game of the series, which Price started. The 24-year-old left-hander, who had made his first All-Star Game in 2010, his second full big-league season,3 told reporters before the game that said he was living a “nightmare” after the negative response to his tweet and worried that a bad performance would have him run out of town by angry fans.4

Price, who entered the game with an 18-6 record and a 2.84 ERA, seemed to regain his focus once he took the mound. The Orioles’ only baserunners in the first five innings were on four singles, and all were stranded.

Brad Bergesen started for Baltimore. After struggling earlier in the season, the 24-year-old right-hander had a 5-1 record with a 2.31 ERA over his past 10 starts. Bergesen had shined on the road, going 3-0 with a 1.49 ERA during that time.

The Rays went ahead in the second. Matt Joyce and Carlos Peña walked to start the inning. B.J. Upton5 singled, and Joyce scored to give the Rays the lead, 1-0.

In the third, Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford singled with two outs and Dan Johnson doubled into the left-field corner to score Crawford with the Rays’ second run. Peña led off the fourth with a solo home run, his 28th of the season, making it 3-0.

Price punctuated a one-two-three top of the fifth with two strikeouts, getting Julio Lugo looking to end the inning. Lugo – who had also been called out on strikes in the first inning – was ejected after he expressed his unhappiness with the call by throwing his helmet, bat, and elbow pad toward home-plate umpire Joe West.

The Rays added to their lead in the bottom of the fifth. Rookie catcher John Jaso led off with a triple. Second baseman Ben Zobrist hit a fly ball to deep center to score Jaso. This brought up Crawford, who slammed Bergesen’s first pitch over the right-field wall to make the score 5-0. It was Crawford’s 17th home run of the season and gave him a career-best 106 runs scored. His 30-double, 13-triple, 19-homer campaign earned him a Silver Slugger Award.

Price gave up a one-out double to Nick Markakis in the sixth. But a popout by Ty Wigginton and a strikeout of designated hitter Jake Fox ended the frame. Baltimore’s Matt Wieters hit another one-out double in the seventh, but a pair of groundouts stranded him on second.

Baltimore’s bullpen – two innings from left-hander Mark Hendrickson and one inning from lefty  Pedro Viola – kept the Rays from tacking on any more runs, and it was still a five-run game when Price retired the side in order in the eighth. He ended the inning by striking out Markakis, his eighth K of the game and a team-leading 187th for the season. Price threw 113 pitches and did not walk a batter.

Rafael Soriano pitched a one-two-three ninth to secure the win for Tampa Bay.6 The 30-year-old right-hander had been the Rays’ closer after arriving in a trade with the Atlanta Braves in 2009. Soriano had won the Delivery Man of the Month award three times during the season.7

“I felt like I needed to throw well for our team, our fans and the whole city of St. Pete,” said Price, expressing relief and hoping his performance helped folks forget his controversial social-media post.8 The win was his 19th of 2010 and his ERA dropped to 2.73, both of them the best on the Rays.

“I’m so proud of David Price,” said teammate James Shields. “This guy has worked so hard and come so far. His work ethic is unbelievable and it showed.”9

After Soriano struck out Adam Jones to end the game, the Rays ran out on the field to celebrate the club’s second-ever trip to the postseason. Showalter had his players watch the celebration from the visitors’ dugout.

“I want our guys to understand that this was an organization not very long ago that wasn’t near as successful as where they are perceived right now,” he said. “It’s a combination of emotion and a lot of work to get to the point where you get a chance to roll the dice in October.”10

It was Tampa Bay’s third consecutive winning season, after doing no better than a .435 winning percentage in their first 10 years. Joe Maddon, who had been the Rays manager since 2006, told reporters after the game “We’re getting to the point where we expect this to happen on an annual basis.” He continued, “I’m already thinking what happens next. We still have other goals in mind to win the division, best record and move on from there.”11

After the win, the Rays announced they would give away 20,000 tickets to the next day’s game. A sellout crowd of 36,973 showed up to see the Rays lose to the Orioles, 2-0.

Tampa Bay finished 96-66. The Rays claimed the AL East title on the final day of the season when they beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in 12 innings while the Yankees lost to the Red Sox.

The Rays played the Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series, which they lost in five games.12 But with their second postseason appearance, the Rays had turned a corner from their losing ways of the first 10 years of their history. They continued to have winning records over the next three seasons, returning to the postseason in 2011 and 2013.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Troy Olszewski and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: David Price, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA201009280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2010/B09280TBA2010.htm

Notes

1 Joe Henderson, “Price’s Arm Does All the Talking,” Tampa Tribune, September 29, 2010: 21. Through the 2024 season, Tampa Bay had attendance of over 2 million just once, when it was 2,506,293 during 1998, their first year in the league. When the team reached the World Series in 2008, the Rays’ attendance of 1,811,986 was 12th in the AL. Their attendance improved only slightly in 2010 to 1,864,999, which was ninth in the league.

2 Trembley was fired on June 5. His record was 187-283. Third-base coach Juan Samuel was named interim manager. He managed the team until Showalter was hired on July 30.

3 Longoria and Crawford were voted in as starters for the American League. Price was chosen as the starting pitcher.

4 “The Rays’ Five Most Memorable Games,” ThisGreatGame.com, accessed June 2025, https://thisgreatgame.com/tampa-bay-rays-top-5-games/.

5 Upton went by his nickname B.J. until 2015. His friends called him Bossman and his father was named Melvin so his nickname became Bossman Junior or B.J. From 2015 until January 2019, he requested that people call him by his birth name of Melvin. Of changing back to B.J., he said his wife thought it sounded better on television. Jake Mintz, “After Four Years as Melvin Upton Jr., B.J. Upton Is Back to Being B.J.,” MLB.com, January 15, 2019. https://www.mlb.com/cut4/b-j-upton-changes-name-again-c302728708.

6 Soriano finished with 45 saves in 2010 to lead the AL.

7 Soriano was the second player to win the award three times. Trevor Hoffman won the award in 2005, 2007 and 2009. The award was first given out during the 2005 season and lasted until the end of the 2013 season, when it was discontinued. It was replaced by the Reliever of the Month Award in 2017.

8 Joe Henderson, “Price’s Arm Does All the Talking.”

9 Roger Mooney, “Sprays,” Tampa Tribune, September 29, 2010: 26.

10 Jeff Zrebiec, “Rays’ Party No Fun for O’s,” Baltimore Sun, September 29, 2010: D1.

11 Mooney, “Sprays.”

12 Texas won the fifth game of the series 5-1. Price took the loss after giving up three runs over six innings. Soriano pitched the ninth and surrendered another two runs.