Fragen und Antworten » Arizona State and Georgia Tech also visit in Decem

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore Orioles right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez will seek to extend his recent surge when he faces the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.With the 7-6 loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday night, the Orioles fell two games behind the Boston Red Sox for first place in the American League East. While the last-place Rays are looking at another offseason full of retooling, they have an opportunity to play spoiler over the final two weeks of the season.Were playing well, Rays manager Kevin Cash said. I dont think we care about spoiler. Were playing well and this is great learning experience for all of us in these environments. It seems like every one of those wins, theres been really crucial parts of the game and were having some guys who are really coming through for us.Baltimore will need to bounce back quickly with so many American League teams within striking distance of the two wild-card spots. Many of the players on the Orioles roster were on the postseason teams of 2012 and 2014 and that experience could serve them well.I dont think you press as much compared to a team that might not be familiar with it, Orioles closer Zach Britton said about the final playoff push. You go about your business every night. But if you win a series, you know the next series is just as important. You come down to the end here, every game is really important. We dont get too far ahead of ourselves in here, which I think really helps us.Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is hoping some of its younger players can come up big and provide some optimism for 2017. Some of them are already impressing Cash.We knew coming into September, this was going to be a good time to evaluate some of our players, Cash said. Right now, there are guys doing some good things, Corey Dickerson and Steven Souza and Kevin Kiermaier, all of them are playing great for us offensively. Thats great to see.Jimenez (7-11, 5.98 ERA) has been one of the Orioles best pitchers over the past month after losing his starting job. Jimenez went back in the rotation when Chris Tillman went on the disabled list. From there, Jimenez has thrived and has helped the playoff push.In his last outing against the Tigers, Jimenez allowed two runs on four hits with three walks and four strikeouts to pick up his second straight win. Jimenez has a 2.83 ERA in his past four starts.It feels great to finally be able to be there for the team, since it wasnt going the way I wanted it at first, Jimenez said. That is the beauty of life and this game -- every day is a new day. You cant give up and you have to find a way to keep fighting.The Rays will look to fare better against Jimenez than the previous time they faced him. On Sept. 5, Ubaldo pitched a complete game in Baltimores 7-3 win.Basically, we saw Ubaldo get in a comfort zone, Cash said. I talked about it after the game. I saw him do that with the Indians. Once he feels he can throw, hes got four or five different pitches and changes speeds with all of them. Its basically, here it is, hit it approach. Thats what he did. There was just a ton of soft contact.The Rays will counter with Chris Archer, who has struggled over parts of the season and is trying to avoid a 20-loss season. Archer (8-18, 4.05) took a hard-luck loss in his previous outing when he allowed three runs on four hits over seven innings in a 5-1 loss to the Yankees.Archer is fourth in the American League with 217 strikeouts. He could possibly join the Angels Nolan Ryan (1976) as the only two pitchers to lead the American League in both losses and strikeouts in the same season.The New York game, that was an unbelievable start, Cash said. He gave up back-to-back homers. I know youre going to lose games like that, and you have to prevent that from happening. Well take that start from Arch for 35 of them. MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Louisville coach Jeff Walz got a victory, and he hopes Middle Tennessee gave his fifth-ranked Cardinals a lesson in listening to the scouting report.Mariya Moore scored 27 points, and Louisville Cardinals never trailed beating Middle Tennessee 91-72 Wednesday night despite giving up a career-high 27 points and 11 assists to Blue Raiders guard Ty Petty.I hope our kids believe now that shes really good, Walz said. We tried to tell them that, but I think there were a few times we decided not to guard her just to see is she really good. After 27 points, Im hoping they realized that, and then Im hoping theyll believe us from now on when we tell them someone is good. She was phenomenal.This was Louisvilles first visit to Middle Tennessee since 2008, and the Cardinals had little trouble improving to 5-1 in this series despite letting Petty knock down 10 of her 17 shots.Ciera Johnson opened with a layup for the Cardinals (3-0), and Alex Johnson hit a short jumper to tie it up at 2. That was as close as Middle Tennessee (0-2) from Conference USA would get as Louisville shot 67 percent taking a 22-9 lead after the first quarter.Asia Durr also had 22 points, and Myisha Hines-Allen added 17 for Louisville.Alex Johnson had 13 for the Blue Raiders.We hope we grow up, Middle Tennessee coach Rick Insell said of his young team with Petty the only senior.Petty pulled the Blue Raiders within 26-21 capping a 12-2 run with a 3 with 4:39 left. That woke the Cardinals up, and they answered with 15 straight points and led 41-24 at halftime.The Cardinals pushed their lead to as much as 24 a couple times in the fourth quarter, the first on a 3 by Hines-Allen.BIG PICTURELouisville: The Cardinals continued their run through an easy opening portion of the schedule before playing fourth-ranked Souuth Carolina on Nov.dddddddddddd 27th. This was the Cardinals third straight game against a team from Tennessee but not against the states only ranked team, No. 13 Tennessee.Middle Tennessee: This was the highest-ranked team to visit since No. 4 Tennessee in 2013, helping the Blue Raiders bring in some star power for their home opener. They dropped to 5-1 all-time against Louisville, but its part of Insells toughening up his Blue Raiders during nonconference play for March. Arizona State and Georgia Tech also visit in December.POLL IMPLICATIONSThe Cardinals did little to hurt themselves with an easy victory. This is their second road game and second against an NCAA Tournament team last March. It gives us more confidence to know were doing so well against great teams, so just lets us know where we are so far, Moore said. All teams get better throughout the season. Its good to know were starting off pretty well.HEIGHT ADVANTAGEWalz played five Cardinals who are 6-foot-2 or taller against a team with only Rebecca Reuter taller than 6 foot. The Cardinals outrebounded Middle Tennessee 44-30 and had a huge edge at the free throw line (21 of 27) compared to the Blue Raiders (3 of 6). The Cardinals even affected shots they werent around as the Blue Raiders missed some wide-open shots.We probably missed seven chip shots, Insell said. Well thats 14 points thats uncontested shots that we usually knock down that because of their size we were looking for them and we didnt follow through. We hit those seven chip shots, you look at the game its a little bit different.UP NEXTLouisville hosts Bowling Green on Saturday afternoon.Middle Tennessee visits Tennessee Tech on Saturday. ' ' '