PHOENIX -- Eric Orze stood in front of his locker in the visitors clubhouse at Chase Field late Wednesday night, the smell of a celebratory beer shower still lingering and a freshly authenticated baseball sitting safely on a shelf behind him.
For all the crazy twists and turns the Rays¡¯ 7-6 win over the D-backs took over the course of 11 back-and-forth innings, they might have saved the best one for last.
There was Orze on the mound, all of six Major League appearances to his name. The D-backs had the bases loaded with one out, needing just one run to tie the game and a hit to walk off as winners.
But Orze fired the perfect splitter to Geraldo Perdomo -- who set up Brandon Lowe and Taylor Walls for a perfect double play -- and all of a sudden Orze was shaking hands after nailing down his first Major League save and halting Tampa Bay¡¯s losing streak at two games.
¡°He's made really good impressions since the day Spring Training started, and maybe none bigger than today,¡± manager Kevin Cash said. ¡°We really like what he's done for us, and he helped us out big time.¡±
The game had been all over the place to that point. Corbin Carroll hit a leadoff home run off Taj Bradley to give the D-backs an early lead. The Rays gained a lead and lost it in the second inning. Arizona pulled ahead in the fourth, only to fall behind on a two-run single by Yandy D¨ªaz in the seventh.
Then Carroll homered again in the seventh, and whatever momentum the Rays gained on Chandler Simpson¡¯s game-tying single in the eighth seemed to disappear when they failed to capitalize on a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation.
¡°We've got to find ways to separate some games and capitalize on opportunities. But we needed a win tonight,¡± Cash said. ¡°I'm happy that we got it, and there were a lot of people that really contributed to that.¡±
Three of them did so in big ways in the 11th inning.
Rookie outfielder Kameron Misner ripped a line drive to center off reliever Drey Jameson that scored Simpson from second. Misner slid safely into third, but he was tagged out while getting to his feet. But the Rays still managed to tack on a critical insurance run, as Jonathan Aranda walked and scored on D¨ªaz¡¯s second double of the night.
¡°I don't feel quite there yet, but I'm just helping the team -- and thank God it was my turn today to do that,¡± D¨ªaz, who went 3-for-6 with three RBIs, said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez.
After Bradley¡¯s quality start, the Rays used four relievers to get through the 10th inning: Mason Montgomery, Edwin Uceta, Garrett Cleavinger and Pete Fairbanks.
With the bottom of the order coming up in the 11th, Cash turned to Orze, the 27-year-old right-hander the Rays acquired last November from the Mets for Jose Siri.
Orze said he was ¡°grateful¡± for the Rays¡¯ trust in him but insisted he wasn¡¯t thinking about the pressure of the situation at hand, with a two-run lead and an automatic runner on second base and his first big league save within reach.
¡°Oh, no, not at all. You do the same thing every day,¡± he said. ¡°You trust the process and go get your outs, and whatever the situation is, it is what it is.¡±
He kept his cool through a rocky start. Alek Thomas bounced a grounder back to the mound and hustled for an infield single, and Walls¡¯ throw to first bounced toward Tampa Bay¡¯s dugout, allowing a run to score and Thomas to reach second.
¡°Really impressed that he was able to kind of keep his composure and just kind of navigate through at his pace,¡± Cash said.
After Tim Tawa walked, Gabriel Moreno pushed Thomas to third with a flyout to right field, then Orze walked Carroll -- who homered twice earlier in the game -- to load the bases with one out.
Watching from the dugout after exiting the game due to left groin tightness, outfielder Jake Mangum -- who came up through the Mets system alongside Orze -- was confident he¡¯d get the job done.
¡°I was fired up,¡± Mangum said. ¡°Knowing his hard work he's put in, knowing what he's gone through, he earned every bit of it.¡±
Perdomo took two pitches, whiffed on one changeup, then slapped another one right to Lowe -- ¡°probably the one ball that he hit that we can turn a double play on,¡± Cash said. Lowe fielded it cleanly and fired the ball to Walls, who quickly slid across second base before zipping a throw to Aranda to complete the game-ending double play.
¡°It was great. Felt great,¡± Orze said, smiling. ¡°It was good to get that one.¡±