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Rays Get To Halladay In 6th

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 24, 2008

LAKE BUENA VISTA - For the better part of five seasons, Eric Hinske watched Roy Halladay pitch plenty of games like the one he had going Wednesday night.

Up three runs after five shutout innings, you could pretty much go ahead and put another 'W' on the Toronto ace's ledger.

"I've seen it time in and time out where he gets that lead and he just goes into cruise control and shuts a team down," said Hinske, who played alongside Halladay with the Blue Jays from 2002 to 2006.

Yet there was Hinske on Wednesday, muscling an RBI single to right field to cap a four-run sixth inning that represented just about all the offense the Rays could muster against Halladay. The 5-3 Tampa Bay victory that sprang from that frame certainly could be termed surprising, simply because that isn't the kind of thing that happens to Halladay.

"He's been doing this for a long time," Rays starter Jason Hammel said. "He goes deep into ballgames and you give him three runs, usually that's good enough."

Hammel was responsible for the 3-0 cushion Halladay carried into the sixth, having surrendered a pair of homers to Matt Stairs that accounted for all of Toronto's scoring. Those runs came in a couple of instants, thanks to a changeup and sinker that strayed from their intended target, but the Rays' dissection of Halladay took a while to unfold.

Coming off back-to-back complete games, Halladay was churning through the Rays with little difficulty, facing one batter over the minimum through the first five innings.

But Dioner Navarro opened the sixth with a double and went to third on a Jason Bartlett single, putting multiple runners on base for the first time. Halladay rallied to strike out Akinori Iwamura, but Carl Crawford responded with a single up the middle to score Navarro and put the Rays on the board. Halladay walked B.J. Upton, his only free pass of the evening, to load the bases for Carlos Pena. The Rays' cleanup hitter couldn't capitalize, striking out to put Halladay on the verge of escape.

That brought Evan Longoria to the plate for the key at-bat in the game. He had rolled over on Halladay offerings his first two times up, grounding out each time. This time, he stayed patient and ended up punching one into right field to score two and tie the game.

"His first two at-bats he hits a ground ball to third, and for a young guy to make that kind of adjustment on a pitcher like that speaks volumes about him, man," Hinske said. "That was awesome, to stay inside that pitch and hit it the other way, that's two big runs right there."

Hinske delivered another, yanking a full-count pitch into the outfield to put the Rays up 4-3. Given an opening, the Rays for once were able to take full advantage.

"It's tough to mount that inning again," Hinske said. "As an offense, when you get those guys on base, when you get that No. 1 starter on the ropes, you've got to do something with it."

The bullpen took over from there, with Dan Wheeler turning in two scoreless innings and Troy Percival handling the ninth for the save.

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

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