Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Tampa Bay 5, Baltimore 0
When: 7:10 PM ET, Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Joe West, 1B - Angel Hernandez, 2B - Rob Drake, 3B - Mike Everitt
Attendance: 17891

The Tampa Bay Rays clinched a playoff spot Tuesday night, riding eight shutout innings from ace David Price to a 5-0 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles.

Price (19-6) handcuffed the Orioles on six hits while striking out eight and not walking a batter to send the Rays into the postseason for the second time in three years.

Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford belted solo home runs to back the 25-year-old left-hander, who improved to 4-0 in September and 4-0 lifetime against Baltimore.

Rafael Soriano finished up in the ninth for his 45th save to set off a celebration before the crowd of 17,891.

Tampa Bay maintained its half-game edge over the New York Yankees in the American League East. The Yankees also clinched a playoff berth Tuesday with a 6-1 win at Toronto.

B.J. Upton had a run-scoring single and Dan Johnson added an RBI double off Orioles starter Brad Bergesen (8-11), who allowed five runs on six hits in five innings.

Price’s gem came less than 24 hours after he posted on his Twitter account that Monday’s crowd of 12,000-plus for a potential clincher was “embarrassing.” He tweeted an apology later that night.

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Baltimore   Tampa Bay
Bradley Bergesen Player David Price
Loss W/L Win
5.0 IP 8.0
2 Strikeouts 8
6 Hits 6
9.00 ERA 0.00
Hitting
Baltimore   Tampa Bay
Nick Markakis Player Carl Crawford
2 Hits 2
0 RBI 1
0 HR 1
3 TB 5
.500 Avg .667
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Baltimore 6 0 8 .182 12 10 0 0 0 0
Tampa Bay 6 2 15 .214 5 4 5 3 0 0