Price shuts out Angels; Rays hit four homers

St. Petersburg, FL – David Price went the distance for his second career shutout and the Tampa Bay Rays blanked the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 5-0, in the opener of a three-game series at Tropicana Field.

Price (3-1) threw 80 of his 119 pitches for strikes and gave up only five hits and one walk while striking out six.

"He really had it going on," Rays manager Joe Maddon said about Price. "There was no rush to his delivery and he stayed in a good tempo pretty much all night long."

Offensively, the Rays got solo home runs from Desmond Jennings, Carlos Pena, Luke Scott and B. J. Upton, who also knocked in a run with a sacrifice fly. Tampa Bay has won three straight and five of their last six contests.

Torii Hunter had two hits for the Angels, who have lost five of their last seven and fell to 6-11 on the season.

Ervin Santana (0-4) was tagged for all five runs on eight hits and one walk while fanning four over five-plus frames.

Tampa Bay opened the scoring in its first at-bat when Jennings took a 3-2 middle-in fastball from Santana deep down the left-field line and just over the wall.

The Rays extended their lead to 2-0 in the fourth after Scott hammered a hanging slider from Santana about four rows back in the right-field seats

It was 3-0 for the Rays after Upton led off the fifth by blasting an 0-1 Santana fastball deep over the wall in left field.

The Rays capped the scoring with two runs in the sixth to make it 5-0. Pena led off the frame with a deep drive into the right-field seats and Evan Longoria followed with a single before stealing second, moving to third on an infield single by Scott, and coming home on a sacrifice fly by Upton.

Price cruised through the final three innings -- only allowing three baserunners -- and got Mark Trumbo to fly out weakly to Jennings in left field to end the game.

"He knew what to do with the lead. He really pounded the zone," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said about Price.

Game Notes

The Angels opened a six-game road trip on Tuesday. They will visit the Cleveland Indians for three games beginning on Friday...The Angels fell to 36-29 all time at Tropicana Field...The Rays improved to 6-1 at home to start a season for the first time in club history...Pena's home run was his 1,000th career hit...Tampa Bay went 1-for-3 with runners in scoring position and stranded three, while Los Angeles was 1-for-3 with runners in scoring position and left five on base.