Wrapping up 7-6 loss

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Orioles had to settle for a split of their four-game series with the Rays today, losing 7-6 on Kevin Kiermaier's first walk-off hit, an infield single off closer Zach Britton with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth.

This team isn't in a position to settle.

The Orioles were 61-1 when leading after the eighth inning. The Rays tied the game when pinch-hitter Brandon Guyer homered on the first pitch thrown by Britton, and they eventually won it, as the Orioles went 8-5 at The Trop this season.

Darren O'Day was unavailable today and Mychal Givens allowed a run in the eighth that reduced the lead to 6-5.

I'm rushing to make my 6:50 p.m. flight home, but here are some postgame quotes:

Manager Buck Showalter on Britton: "He made one bad pitch the whole inning and that was the first one. He doesn't elevate many balls and Guyer put a good swing on it. But Zach, you can make a case for him being as good a closer as there is in baseball. He's been super all year. But we didn't pitch well before that. That's growing pains with Gaus (Kevin Gausman) and Mychal. They've got to be exposed to those situations. I think the walk to (Grady) Sizemore after the big double play ball ... There's power through the lineup and you can't drop your guard. And Mychal walked the first guy he faced. How about Paul Janish today? That was pretty impressive. He had a big day for us or we wouldn't be talking about the last inning."

Showalter on Gausman: "That's what I said. He had a decent outing. There was a lot better outing to be had, but we've been going for a long period of time. We've been making a lot of mistakes 0-2 and 1-2 and Kevin did that again today. There was such a better outing for him, but they'll learn. The good ones learn, they'll learn from it. Save situations that really shouldn't be created."

Showalter on how much the loss hurt: "I don't get in that gloom and doom. You guys can. We don't do that. There's math there and good things ahead of us and we're going to try to win the rest of our games and make it tough on everybody. I know the world people choose to live in. We choose not to."

Britton on ninth inning: "I figured Guyer was going to be aggressive, I've faced him enough. Just (threw) a sinker that didn't sink. He put a good swing on it. After that, just tried to bear down and get us back in the dugout. I wanted to put (Logan) Forsythe on, he's been swinging the bat well. Same thing with (Richie) Shaffer, kind of give him something to swing at outside the zone and he didn't. So I put him on there. I got the guy up there that I wanted in Kiermaier. Got him 0-2. Just didn't execute an 0-2 pitch. And it's an infield single but at the same time, I've got to execute a little bit better 0-2 and get us back in the dugout."

Britton on losing like that on infield single: "Yeah, if you want to look at just that but I look at everything leading up to that situation. Obviously, just a one-run game. Knowing Guyer, faced him before, he's pretty aggressive. Tried to get a ball down. But, yeah, at the end of the day, if I get beat on that ... if he hits a base hit through the hole, something hard, it's a little easier to live with. But at the same time, it comes back to executing when you are ahead in the count. Throwing a pitch right there, getting him to chase. And then seeing where we are from there. But I just didn't do it."

Britton on tough loss: "Yeah, where we are right now, every win's big. To kind of get out of here with another victory would have been really nice. So yeah it's going to be a frustrating flight back home, especially for me. Where we are, we want to get that W going to D.C. They are a good club, the last couple clubs we've faced having been playing well too. It just made it that much harder."

Gausman on his performance: "Good. I felt good physically, felt like the ball was coming out good. Threw some real good elevated fastballs. Really just one pitch. I left too center to a good hitter and that was the difference between me going seven and giving up one run and only going six and giving up four. You kind of take those things away from it. Take the good things and try to forget the bad, I guess."

Gausman on how much loss hurts: "It's pretty tough anytime you lose. Obviously, we wanted to win three, go to D.C. and kind of hit the ground running and then go into Boston, but I felt like we had a really good series and we put ourselves in a good situation there to win the third game. You can't be upset when things like that happen. You're trying to get a ground ball, you get a ground ball like Britton did. It just happens to be one of the fastest guys in the league, so kind of unfortunate."