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Rays Can't Solve Beckett

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By MARC LANCASTER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 22, 2007

Updated: 09/22/2007 12:44 am

ST. PETERSBURG - It was a milestone night for the starting pitchers at Tropicana Field, but Josh Beckett got the better of Scott Kazmir.

While the Rays' young lefty reached the 200-inning plateau for the first time in his career and continued to mount a challenge for the American League strikeout title, Boston's ace collected his 20th victory as the Red Sox prevailed 8-1 to snap a four-game skid.

Beckett became the first pitcher to reach 20 wins this year after that plateau went unconquered last season. Doing his part to deepen a Rays offensive slump that has seen Tampa Bay score three runs in its last three games, Beckett didn't find himself in any trouble after the first inning and retired the final 10 men he faced.

'It was a pretty special night for him,' Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. 'Not too bad for us, either.'

The Rays managed to make Beckett (20-6) work early on, driving his pitch count to 92 after just four innings, but the Red Sox did the same to Kazmir. With Manager Joe Maddon enforcing a hard cap of 100 pitches, Kazmir racked up 91 in five innings.

'I begged Joe to let me go out there for the sixth,' he said. 'I literally got on my knees and begged him to get out there.'

Maddon stuck to his plan, but making it that far gave Kazmir 200 2/3 innings this season, making him the fourth pitcher in Rays history to top 200 and the second this year. James Shields' campaign is finished at 215 innings.

Kazmir (13-9) struck out nine batters to give him 229 for the season, which at the end of the night put him two behind Minnesota's Johan Santana for the major-league lead. Santana fanned 11 White Sox batters Friday night to reach 231.

As helpful as the strikeouts were in getting Kazmir out of a couple of jams - whiffs left the bases full of Red Sox in the third and fifth innings - the lefty was ineffectively wild, too. He walked four batters overall and saw his control fly out the window in Boston's two-run third inning. That frame included two hit batters, two walks and a wild pitch that brought home Boston's second run of the game.

The first scored on a throwing error by catcher Dioner Navarro in the first inning, so it wasn't as if the Red Sox were hitting Kazmir very hard. They just took advantage of their opportunities, sapping Kazmir's sense of accomplishment along the way.

'That's a good feeling, to have those 200 innings,' Kazmir said quietly. 'But it was kind of bittersweet, because I wanted to beat these guys.'

That feeling wasn't universal at Tropicana Field, as the requisite Red Sox-friendly crowd of 27,369 bellowed its approval of every big play for Boston. Whether it was burgeoning cult hero Jacoby Ellsbury sliding into a bullpen chair for a gutsy catch in the fifth inning or David Ortiz poking his 12th homer against the Rays in the last two seasons over the left-field fence in the ninth, there was no doubt the Red Sox felt plenty of love.

Rays fans rallied a bit in the seventh when Scott Dohmann struck out the heart of Boston's lineup in order, but their enthusiasm was short-lived as the Rays couldn't put another runner on base against a Boston bullpen that hasn't exactly been airtight lately. Tampa Bay's last runner of the evening came on a Delmon Young single with two out in the third inning.

Missing the injured Carl Crawford and Brendan Harris, the Rays have hit a collective .167 in the last three games while striking out 41 times.

'We have not done as well offensively, but we're missing two really key components of the offense against really good pitching right now,' Maddon said. 'It makes it difficult, but we've got to find a way to win these games, somehow.'

Tampa Bay and Boston pitchers combined for 30 strikeouts Friday, the most in any game involving the Rays. The real home team's pitchers had 17 of them to tie a team record, but that footnote was a consolation prize that will quickly be forgotten.

Reporter Marc Lancaster can be reached at (813) 259-7227 or mlancaster@tampatrib.com.

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