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Finally An Offensive Outburst

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 3, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - It wasn't just that the Rays scored more runs Saturday night than they had in any game for nearly a month. It was how they did it.

Scoring four times after two were out in the second inning, with clutch hits by B.J. Upton, Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria in succession. Crossing the plate three more times in the fourth as they ran Kenny Rogers from the game with an absurdly high pitch count. Piling on in the sixth with the latest Longoria longball.

It was an everybody-hits kind of night like the Rays haven't had in what seems like forever, making the resulting 9-3 romp against the Tigers a statement for those in the clubhouse who had insisted they have this kind of firepower in-house. The Rays set a club mark with 42 home wins in a game they can build upon.

"If I had one wish, it's that we just work our at-bats that way through the rest of the year," Manager Joe Maddon said. "Good things will follow."

The work the heart of the Rays' order did in the second inning stood out. Upton inherited runners at first and second and two outs, the type of situation that has not necessarily brought out his best lately. He came up big, though, cracking a double to center to score Shawn Riggans, and Crawford followed with a single that drove in Upton and Jason Bartlett. Longoria followed with a double down the line in left that brought Crawford racing all the way around from first to score.

The inning marked the Rays' biggest outburst since their five-run sixth against Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays on July 19, with four of those runs coming on Longoria's first career grand slam. That moment was impressive, but stringing together three hits against a veteran starter like Rogers when it counted was a much better indication that the Rays can get it done offensively.

"He's going to try to pitch on the corners and get you to swing at his pitches," Longoria said. "We did a good job of laying off of them and hitting the ones that we could handle."

Detroit responded to the Rays' first big inning by knocking around Andy Sonnanstine in the third, collecting four hits and scoring twice, but the Rays' starter managed to get a handle on things. Sonnanstine (11-6) had expressed some frustration following his previous start, a 6-1 loss to the Royals, about how difficult it was to win on only one run. He had no such issues Saturday.

"I kind of felt bad about those comments in Kansas City, and the best way I can put it is an emotional reaction to a tough loss for me," he said. "I like being a stopper, I like winning after we lose, and tonight I was my own stopper, with the last three starts not being so great. It really boosted my confidence."

That feeling ran high for the Rays' hitters as well. They seized the momentum back in the sixth, batting around as they ran Rogers from the game after three of the first four hitters reached base. Bartlett came home on a passed ball and a one-out walk of Crawford finished Rogers. The former Plant City High star departed having thrown a season-high 109 pitches in a 31/3-inning stint that matched his shortest of the year.

Longoria greeted reliever Freddy Dorsi by lining his first pitch for an RBI single, and Dorsi followed that by walking the next two Rays to force in a run. Punctuation came in the sixth, when Longoria blasted a Casey Fossum pitch 424 feet for his 21st homer of the season, tying Jonny Gomes' club record for a rookie.

"I'm just seeing a higher quality mental at-bat right now," Maddon said, "which I think is going to result in a lot of these guys having a good August and September."

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

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