How to Watch Rays' Season Opener With Orioles; Gametime, Lineups, Pregame Chatter

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It's a week later that planned, but the Tampa Bay Rays are finally getting the 2022 season started on Friday. They'll play the Baltimore Orioles at 3:10 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field.

“It never gets old and you appreciate it so much. Spring training was shortened this year, but it still got long at the end,'' said Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash, whose team is coming off a 100-win season and has high expectations again this season.

“There’s a lot of potential, but there’s a lot of challenges as well. You want to be good at balancing both of them and believe that we’re setting them for ourselves, and we’re playing a much improved team today in Baltimore,'' Cash said. "They’ve made some upgrades and we should have our challenges on Opening Day and in this first series.''

Highly touted rookie Josh Lowe is getting the Opening Day start at designated hitter. The Rays made room for him last week by trading away Austin Meadows. Cash said he plans on playing Lowe a lot.

“I view Josh as he’s going to come up and play a lot. I know it’s a lefty (John Means, starting for Baltimore), but I wanted to have Josh get in there and get acclimated and he’ll probably in the outfield (Saturday). It’s tough coming out of the gate. We play 13 in a row, and we’ll trying to continue to keep that in mind going forward in regards to keeping everyone fresh.’’

Here are all the details on how to watch the game, with gametime and TV information, the latest gambling odds, bios and starting lineups, but our daily dose of newsy nuggets.

How to watch Orioles vs. Rays

Who: Baltimore Orioles (0-0) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (0-0)
When: 3:10 p.m. ET, Friday, April 8
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg
TV: Bally Sports Sun
Stream: Fubo.tv CLICK HERE
Announcers: Dewayne Staats (play-by-play), Brian Anderson (color commentary) and Tricia Whitaker (in-game reporter).
Radio: WDAE 95.3 FM; SiriusXM Channel 178
Announcers: Andy Freed and Dave Wills.
Latest Line: Tampa Bay is at minus-200 on the money line according to the SISportsbook.com website opening line as of Friday morning. Baltimore is plus-165. The over/under is 7.5.

Orioles-Rays history

Orioles vs. Rays all-time series history: Tampa Bay holds a 221-199 edge in the series dating back to 1998. The Rays hold the edge at Tropicana Field, with a 119-92 record. Last year, Tampa Bay went 18-1, tying a major-league record for most wins in a season against an opponent. (Houston over Seattle and Cleveland over Detroit, both in 2019)
Orioles vs. Rays last meeting: On Aug. 29 last season, the Rays won 12-8 in Baltimore to end the season series. Joey Wendle hit two home runs and drove six runs for the Rays. Chris Archer started for Tampa Bay and pitched four innings, allowing two runs. JT Chargois pitched a scoreless fifth inning to get the win.

Orioles-Rays most recent games

Orioles' last game: This is their first regular-season game of the year. In their final spring training game on Tuesday, they lost 2-1 to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Rays' last game: This is their first regular-season game of the year. In their final spring training game on Wednesday, they lost 9-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Tropicana Field.

Meet the Orioles-Rays managers

Meet Orioles manager Brandon Hyde: Brandon Hyde is starting his fourth season as manager of the Orioles. He has a 131-253 record with the Orioles, a .341 winning percentage. He coached in Chicago for former Rays manager Joe Maddon from 2016-18.
Meet Rays manager Kevin Cash: Kevin Cash is starting his eighth season as manager of the Rays. He has been named AL Manager of the Year each of the past two seasons. He has a 554-478 record with the Rays, and his .537 winning percent is the best in Rays history. He is the second-longest-tenured manager in baseball behind Cleveland's Terry Francona.

Projected starting pitchers

Orioles left-hander John Means: Means was 6-9 last season for the Orioles, with a 3.62 ERA. This is his fourth season as an every-day starter for Baltimore. Since 2018, he has made 63 starts and has a 20-24 record with a 3.82 ERA. Last year he faced the Rays five times, and was 0-2, and gave up 16 runs in 22 2/3 innings. Baltimore lost all five games.
Rays left-hander Shane McClanahan: Shane McClanahan is making his first Opening Day start for the Rays. His first major-league appearance came during the 2020 players, the first pitcher in MLB history to debut in the postseason. He was 10-6 with a 3.43 ERA in 2021, and was 4-0 with a 2.74 ERA against the Orioles last year. The former first-round pick out of South Florida is the youngest Tampa Bay opening day starter since Scott Kazmir in 2007. Here is a link to the story on how McClanahan is approaching his Opening Day start. CLICK HERE

Projected lineups

Orioles lineup: CF Cedric Mullins, DH Trey Mancini, 1B Ryan Mountcastle, LF Austin Hays, RF Anthony Santander, 3B Kelvin Gutierrez, SS Ramon Urias, C Robinson Chirinos, 2B Jorge Mateo, P John Means

Rays lineup: 3B Yandy Diaz, SS Wander Franco, 1B Harold Ramirez, LF Randy Arozarena, 2B Brandon Lowe, C Mike Zunino, DH Josh Lowe, RF Manual Margot, CF Kevin Kiermaier, P Shane McClanahan

Nuggets to know

Nuggets to know, Part 1: This is the 25th opening day for the Rays. They are 12-12 overall, and won 1-0 against Miami a year ago. This is the 17th time they have opened at home. They are 8-8 in Tropicana Field openers.
Nuggets to know, Part 2: The Rays and Orioles are familiar foes on Opening Day. This is the eighth meeting to open the season, the most for the Rays against any opponent. The Rays are 2-5 all-time vs. Baltimore in season openers, 1-3 at Tropicana Field, and 1-2 at Camden Yards.
Nuggets to know, Part 3: Rays starter Shane McClanahan was born in Baltimore and his family lived there until he was 6 years old. He said he remembers taking the train to games in Baltimore as a little boy, and had a Cal Ripken Jr. poster in his bedroom.
Nuggets to know, Part 4: It's hard to win games in the free-spending American League East, but the Rays have owned the division lately. They went 51-28 vs. the division a year ago. The Rays have won 140 games overall the past two years, a full 15 games better than anyone else.