Post-game Notes: Rays win series opener

Long time coming - Tampa Bay snapped an 11-game losing streak with Monday's 8-4 win. During the streak, the Rays were out-scored 61-23. Tampa was 0-7 on its current road trip, losing four at New York and three in Boston. A loss would have extended Tampa's losing skid to 12 games, which would have been its longest since September of 2004. The Tampa club record is 15 losses in a row in 2002. This was the Rays first win since September 2nd vs. Boston. Tampa offense: During losing streak: 23 runs scored, team average .183 Tonight: 8 runs scored, .385 team average The eight runs Tampa scored tonight matched its scoring output total on the first seven games of its current road trip. Early issues - The O's gave up one run in the first inning tonight. O's pitchers have allowed at least one run in the opening inning now of six straight games and in eight of the last nine games. O's shortstop Cesar Izturis tonight played in the 1,000th game of his Major League career. He went 1 for 5. Izturis has played for six big league teams. He played his most games (590) with the Dodgers and tonight was his 97th with the Orioles. Tampa has taken a 6-5 lead in the season series. The clubs have split six games in Baltimore. The O's lead the all-time series, 101-96. Minor League Awards: The Orioles made the official announcement earlier tonight that Brandon Waring wins the Brooks Robinson Award as O's Minor League Player of the Year and Brian Matusz wins the Jim Palmer Award as Minor League Pitcher of the year. Caleb Joseph is the winner of the Elrod Hendricks Award for Community Service and Norfolk pitching coach Mike Griffin won the Cal Ripken Senior Award. Pro scout Jim Howard won the scouting award. Trainers Mark Shires of Norfolk and Aaron Scott of Delmarva were each named top trainer in their league. All the winners, plus Zach Britton, who was named top pitcher in the Carolina League, will be honored on the field before Wednesday's game. Melvin Mora broke his second-place tie with Doug Decinces for most games started at third base by an Oriole. Decinces started 792, tonight was number 793 for Mora. Brooks Robinson started 2,870 games at third for Baltimore. Nolan Reimold's first-inning single extended his batting streak to five games. Over his last 11 games, Reimold is hitting .366-3-6. Mora went 2 for 4 tonight. Over his last 13 games, he is batting ,348-3-9. The O's are 4-4 over the last eight games and, over a longer stretch, have lost 8 of 12 games. They are 10-13 over the last 23 contests. The Orioles are 18-38 vs. AL East teams, including a mark of 12-15 at home vs. the East.