St. Petersburg, Fla. ? The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were so close. Then again, that’s been the case a lot of times during the longest losing streak in the major leagues since 1988.

“It makes it tougher to handle when you know you were close,” Ben Grieve said after Friday night’s 6-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles stretched the Devil Rays’ skid to 15 games.

“But as far as our attitude, I think it’s better knowing that we had chances to win for the majority of the streak,” Grieve added. “I think if we were getting blown out and not in any of these games, we’d kind of realize that maybe we really, really stink instead of just kind of stink.”

Ten of the losses during the streak have been by one or two runs, and the Devil Rays have taken leads into the ninth inning four times. One night they’re the victim of poor relief pitching, and the next it’s a lack of timely hitting.

“It’s sort of been that way, but what it amounts to is you’re not playing well enough to win,” manager Hal McRae said. “You can always single this one event out here or one event out there. You go from event to event. But in total what it means is you’re not playing good enough to win.”

Melvin Mora drove in two runs for the Orioles as the Devil Rays became the 30th team since 1900 to lose 15 in a row. Their skid is the longest since Baltimore began the 1988 season by losing an AL-record 21 consecutive games.

The major league record of 23 was set by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies.

“If you watch TV or read the paper, you can find it humiliating,” Grieve said. “When I go home, I don’t watch SportsCenter and make sure I don’t watch the local sports and don’t read the sports section.”

At 9-25, Tampa Bay is off to the slowest start by an AL team since the Oakland Athletics had the same record after 34 games in 1994. The Florida Marlins also started 9-25 in 1999.

Rookie Rodrigo Lopez (5-0) allowed three runs and four hits in six innings, leaving with a 6-3 lead. Randy Winn’s two-run single off Willis Roberts trimmed Baltimore’s lead to one run in the seventh.

The Devil Rays loaded the bases in the eighth on three walks, but wasted an opportunity to score the tying or go-ahead runs when Chris Gomez grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Rangers 2, Tigers 0

Arlington, Texas Kenny Rogers outpitched Jeff Weaver, and Michael Young broke up a scoreless game with an RBI double in the eighth inning as Texas beat Detroit. Rogers (4-1) went eight innings, allowing seven hits. He struck out five and walked one.

Hideki Irabu recorded three outs for his ninth save in 10 chances, finishing Texas’ third shutout of the season.

An Alex Rodriguez bobblehead promotion drew an announced crowd of 41,969, although many fans bought cheap tickets, collected their dolls and were seen leaving the stadium two hours before the first pitch. There were large areas of empty seats in the outfield upper decks.

Angels 19, White Sox 0

Anaheim, Calif. Anaheim scored its most runs ever at home, hitting five home runs and piling up 24 hits against Chicago. Adam Kennedy homered twice and had four hits, Garret Anderson added a homer and four hits and Tim Salmon also had four hits as the Angels won for the 12th time in 14 games after a franchise-worst 6-14 start. Scott Schoeneweis (2-4) allowed three hits in seven innings to win for the first time in six starts.

Blue Jays 6, Athletics 2

Oakland, Calif. Tom Wilson drove in a career-high three runs to spoil Mark Mulder’s return to the mound as Toronto sent Oakland to its season-high fourth straight loss. Carlos Delgado went 4-for-5 as the Blue Jays won for just the third time in 15 games. Oakland (17-18) has dropped eight of 10 to fall below .500 for the first time since last July 6 Mulder (2-2), making his first start since April 11 after spending 27 days on the disabled list with a strained left forearm, lasted just 413 innings. He allowed six runs on eight hits.

Yankees 5, Twins 3

Minneapolis Derek Jeter sparked a four-run fifth inning with a two-run homer for New York. David Wells (5-1) struck out a season-high six for the Yankees, who overcame a 3-1 deficit to win their fourth in a row. Wells allowed three runs two earned and nine hits in 623 innings, improving to 16-6 with a 2.44 ERA against the Twins.

Mariners 7, Red Sox 2

Seattle Ichiro Suzuki scored four runs and stole three bases as Seattle ended Boston’s nine-game winning streak. Mark McLemore was 3-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs to back Joel Pineiro (3-0).

Late Thursday game

M’s 8, Blue Jays 7, (11)

Seattle Mike Cameron walked on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded and two outs in the 11th inning against Toronto rookie Corey Thurman (0-1) to end Seattle’s longest game of the season at 4 hours, 50 minutes.