Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Tampa Bay 4, Baltimore 1
When: 7:10 PM ET, Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Ted Barrett, 1B - Mark Carlson, 2B - Angel Hernandez, 3B - Ed Hickox
Attendance: 17909

Rays 4, Orioles 1: Evan Longoria clubbed three solo home runs and host Tampa Bay snuffed out Baltimore's slim hopes of winning the American League East title.

Jeremy Hellickson (10-11) allowed one hit and struck out six in 5 1/3 scoreless innings and Ryan Roberts added a solo blast for the Rays, who closed the season with wins in 12 of their last 14 games.

Closer Fernando Rodney got the final out in the ninth for his 48th save and finished the season with an 0.60 ERA, just eclipsing Dennis Eckersley (0.61) for the lowest ERA of all time by a reliever with at least 50 innings pitched.

Adam Jones drove in the only run in the second straight loss for the Orioles, who will hit the road for a wild card matchup with the Texas Rangers on Friday night. Baltimore starter Chris Tillman (9-3) had his four-game winning streak snapped after allowing three runs on four hits in five innings.

Longoria went deep in the first, fourth and sixth innings for his second career three-homer game, giving him 17 in a season in which he missed more than three months with a torn hamstring.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Longoria registered his 11th career multi-homer game, which included a pair of blasts in the regular-season finale in 2011. ... Game time for Friday's wild card game is 8:37 p.m. ET. The Orioles went 2-5 against Texas this season and were outscored 56-24. ... Hellickson's victory gave Tampa Bay five 10-game winners for the second straight season.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Baltimore   Tampa Bay
Chris Tillman Player Jeremy Hellickson
Loss W/L Win
5.0 IP 5.1
5 Strikeouts 6
4 Hits 1
5.40 ERA 0.00
Hitting
Baltimore   Tampa Bay
Adam JonesPlayer Evan Longoria
1 Hits 3
1 RBI 3
0 HR 3
1 TB 12
.333 Avg .750
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Baltimore 3 0 4 .100 8 10 1 2 0 0
Tampa Bay 6 4 18 .200 4 8 4 0 0 0