BALTIMORE (AP) — Gary Sanchez homered and drove in four runs, Ramón Laureano scored four times and the Baltimore Orioles stormed back from an early six-run deficit to rout the Tampa Bay Rays 22-8 on Friday night.
The Orioles were on the wrong end of a similar comeback against Tampa Bay just nine days earlier, when the Rays rallied from down 8-0 to beat Baltimore 12-8.
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Baltimore Orioles' Colton Cowser (17) and Ramon Laureano, right, celebrate after scoring on a two-run RBI hit by Coby Mayo during the second inning of a baseball game, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Tampa Bay Rays' Josh Lowe, right, rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Tampa Bay Rays starter Ryan Pepiot, foreground, leaves the mound during a pitching substitution in the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Baltimore Orioles' Ramon Laureano advances toward home plate to score on a throwing error by Tampa Bay Rays catcher Danny Jansen during the third inning of a baseball game, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Tampa Bay opened the scoring with six runs in the second. Jonathan Aranda, Josh Lowe and Brandon Lowe homered in that inning, but Rays starter Ryan Pepiot couldn't make it through the bottom half. The Orioles scored four runs in the second and one in the third.
With Tampa Bay up 7-6 in the sixth, Sanchez hit a two-run shot off Eric Orze (1-1). Colton Cowser’s third double of the game brought home another run in the sixth. Sanchez then followed with his third hit — a two-run single that made it 11-7.
Laureano added a two-run single in the seventh. Jackson Holliday's solo homer in the eighth made it 16-8, at which point infielder José Caballero came in to pitch for the Rays and allowed six more runs. Gunnar Henderson hit a two-run shot — his fourth hit of the game — off him.
Sanchez finished with four hits as well. The Orioles had 21 as a team. Baltimore's final runs came when Coby Mayo hit his first career home run, a two-run shot off Caballero.
Tomoyuki Sugano (6-4) allowed seven runs in five innings for the Orioles. The 35-year-old rookie had gone his first 15 starts without allowing more than four.
Pepiot had gone 12 straight starts permitting three runs or fewer, and the Rays were coming off a three-game sweep of Kansas City in which they allowed only one run total.
Laureano and Cowser led off the bottom of the fifth with consecutive doubles to bring the Orioles within one, setting up Sanchez's big homer that bounced off the top of the wall and over in left-center field.
The Orioles fell one run short of their team record since moving to Baltimore — which was set when they beat Toronto 23-1 on Sept. 28, 2000.
Zach Eflin (6-4) takes the mound for the Orioles against his former team Saturday. Tampa Bay counters with Zack Littell (6-7).
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Baltimore Orioles' Colton Cowser (17) and Ramon Laureano, right, celebrate after scoring on a two-run RBI hit by Coby Mayo during the second inning of a baseball game, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Tampa Bay Rays' Josh Lowe, right, rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Tampa Bay Rays starter Ryan Pepiot, foreground, leaves the mound during a pitching substitution in the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Baltimore Orioles' Ramon Laureano advances toward home plate to score on a throwing error by Tampa Bay Rays catcher Danny Jansen during the third inning of a baseball game, Friday, June 27, 2025, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Sunday that the United States would not govern Venezuela day-to-day other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on the country, a turnaround after President Donald Trump has insisted that the U.S. would be running Venezuela following its ouster of leader Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio's statements seemed designed to temper concerns that the assertive action to achieve regime change in Venezuela might lead the U.S. into another prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building.
They stood in contrast to Trump’s broad but vague claims that the U.S. would at least temporarily “run” the oil-rich nation, comments that suggested some sort of governing structure under which Caracas would be controlled by Washington.
Rubio offered a more nuanced take, saying the U.S. would continue to enforce an oil quarantine that was already in place on sanctioned tankers before Maduro was removed from power early Saturday and use that leverage as a means to press policy changes in Venezuela.
“And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that," Rubio said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” "We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes, not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”
The blockade on sanctioned oil tankers — some of which have been seized by the U.S. — “remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela,” he added.
Leaders in Venezuela have so far pushed back, calling on the Trump administration to release Maduro.
Even before the operation that nabbed Maduro, experts questioned the legality of aspects of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on Maduro, including the deadly bombing of boats accused of trafficking drugs that some scholars said stretched the boundaries of international law.
Cuba on Sunday night announced that 32 Cuban security officers were killed in the U.S. operation in Venezuela, which Trump acknowledged: “You know, a lot of Cubans were killed yesterday.”
“There was a lot of death on the other side," Trump said aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "No death on our side.”
The president's vow, repeated more than half a dozen times at a Florida news conference on Saturday, sparked concerns among some Democrats. It also drew unease from parts of his own Republican coalition, including an “America First” base that is opposed to foreign interventions, and from observers who recalled past nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rubio dismissed such criticism, saying Trump’s intent had been misunderstood.
“The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan,” Rubio said. "This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere.”
He also suggested the U.S. would give Maduro’s subordinates now in charge time to govern, saying, “We’re going to judge everything by what they do.” Though he did not rule out boots on the ground in Venezuela, Rubio said the U.S., which has built up its presence in the region, was already capable of stopping alleged drug boats and sanctioned tankers.
A day earlier, Trump had told reporters, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” He later pointed to his national security team with him, including Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and said it would be done for a period of time by “the people that are standing right behind me. We’re gonna be running it, we’re gonna be bringing it back."
Despite Rubio's seeking to tamp down that notion, Trump reiterated Sunday that the U.S. would control Venezuela, saying, “We’re going to run everything."
“We’re going to run it, fix it,” he said Sunday. He added, "We’ll have elections at the right time” but didn't say when that might be.
A middle-of-the-night operation extracted Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital city of Caracas — an act Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic seizure capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has called Maduro the country’s rightful leader, even as her nation’s high court named her interim president. So did Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, who sai the country's armed forces “categorically reject the cowardly kidnapping" and will “maintain internal order and peace.”
Asked about Rodríguez comments in which she stands by Maduro, Trump said, “I don’t think it’s pushback" and suggested her calling what occurred a kidnapping of Maduro wasn't "a bad term.”
Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in Manhattan's federal court.
He and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
Venezuela’s government kept operating as usual over the weekend as ministers remained in their posts.
The capital was unusually quiet Sunday with few vehicles moving around and convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses closed.
Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolás Ernesto Guerra, has not appeared in public since the attack. On Saturday, he posted on Instagram a government statement repudiating the capture of his father and stepmother.
The country’s incoming National Assembly is set to be sworn in at the legislative palace in Caracas. The unicameral assembly will remain under control of the ruling party.
Under Venezuelan law, Rodríguez would take over from Maduro. Rodriguez stressed during a Saturday appearance on state television that she did not plan to assume power, before Venezuela’s high court ordered that she assume the interim role.
Trump told The Atlantic in an interview Sunday that Rodríguez could “pay a very big price” if she doesn’t do what he thinks is right for Venezuela. Speaking to reporters later, Trump said Rodríguez is “cooperating” but reiterated the threat. He said he wanted her to provide “total access,” from major oil operations to basic infrastructure like roads, so all can be rebuilt.
His warning contrasted with his comments about Rodríguez on Saturday when he said Rubio had spoken with her and she was willing to do what the U.S. thinks is needed to improve the standard of living in Venezuela.
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One and Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.
Protestors hold a banner stating "Trump Must Go Now" as they gather outside the UN Plaza during a demonstration against the U.S. bombing of Venezuela and seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Government supporters burn a U.S. flag in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
National Guard armored vehicles block an avenue leading to Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Destroyed containers lay at La Guaira port after explosions were heard in Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Smoke rises from Fort Tiuna, the main military garrison in Caracas, Venezuela, after multiple explosions were heard and aircraft swept through the area, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Men watch smoke rising from a dock after explosions were heard at La Guaira port, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro embrace in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
