Hey, your mom(s) called, you left your bat(s) at home! Here’s some new magic numbers for you, Rays fans: 0, 3. Those are the stats for runs scored and hits, respectively, for the Tampa Bay Rays in Monday night’s shutout embarrassment at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles.

Another game with nothing doing until the fifth inning… Well, which is not to imply lack of opportunity, but lack of execution. The Rays had the chance to start the scoring in the bottom of the first frame. Jason Bartlett, hitting .406 in his last 10 games, got a hold of a one-out single and cruised to second base on a fielding error by Baltimore RF Nick Markakis. JB advanced to third base on Carl Crawford’s groundout and Willy Aybar took a free bag when hit by a pitch. Ben Zobrist struck out to end the early opportunity.

Rays starter Wade Davis threw a solid outing, allowing scattered hits through the first four frames. He yielded a one-out double to Cesar Izturis in the fifth and responded by striking out Brian Roberts with three impressive, mid-90s fastballs. And then there was that RBI-triple to Markakis… Yeah, about that… Shite.

This article appears in Sep 23-29, 2010.