Tillman shines while De Aza, Pearce and Flaherty homer as O's take opener

Chris Tillman ended the 2014 regular season pitching like an ace and he started 2015 in the same fashion today. Tillman took a shutout into the seventh, pitching the Orioles past Tampa Bay 6-2 in the season opener at Tropicana Field.

Tillman went 6 2/3 innings, allowing just four hits and one run with three walks and four strikeouts. Evan Longoria homered off him in the seventh for his sixth career homer in 36 at-bats off Tillman, who threw 95 pitches, 52 for strikes.

The right-hander is now 9-4 with a 2.33 ERA and 17 quality starts over his last 22 regular season starts. It was a very ace-like effort from Tillman today.

The Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the first. Alejandro De Aza led off and reached on a throwing error by pitcher Chris Archer. He went to second on a walk, to third on a flyout and scored when Travis Snider singled in his first official O's at-bat.

The score stayed there until the top of the fifth. With one out, Caleb Joseph doubled. He scored on De Aza's two-run homer to right, which came on the 10th pitch of the at-bat. De Aza fouled off several pitches before he got one he could handle, an 86 mph changeup to make it 3-0.

An inning later, Steve Pearce turned around a 95 mph Archer fastball to homer to left on a 1-1 pitch, giving the O's a 4-0 lead. It was the fourth homer in 43 career at-bats at Tropicana Field for the Lakeland, Fla., native.

With the O's leading 5-2 in the ninth, Ryan Flaherty hit a solo homer off Kirby Yates to give the Orioles the 6-2 advantage. It was the O's first three-homer game on opening day since 2010 against Minnesota.

Pearce, De Aza and Flaherty join a list of Orioles with one opening day homer for the club. It also includes Javy Lopez, Cesar Izturis, Nelson Cruz, Nick Markakis, Marty Cordova and Rick Dempsey.

Archer took the loss, allowing six hits and four runs (three earned) in 5 2/3 innings. He has a career ERA of 5.58 in six appearances against the Orioles and went 0-1 with an ERA of 9.00 in two starts versus Baltimore last year.

For the most part, the Orioles had a good day and the Rays a bad one. That was never more evident than in the top of the eighth. On a double by Snider, Pearce was apparently out at the plate by a mile as the throw beat him home by 20 feet. But the tag of catcher Rene Rivera was high and Pearce got his foot in ahead of it. Via replay, the umpires overturned the origianal out call and Snider had a two-RBI day.

The Orioles, who went 47-29 against the American League East last season, take a 149-148 lead in the all-time series against Tampa Bay.

With the win, the Orioles improved to 40-22 all-time on opening day. They have won five in a row and are 12-3 in openers since 2001. They are 5-2 when opening against Tampa Bay.

In the second game of the season on Tuesday night at 7:10 p.m., Wei-Yin Chen (16-6, 3.54 ERA in 2014) faces Nathan Karns (1-1, 4.50 ERA).