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Base-Running 'Mess-Ups' Doom Rays In 2-1 Loss To A's

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 13, 2008

OAKLAND, Calif. - Maybe Cliff Floyd just had a bad feeling about what was to come.

Before Tuesday's game, the veteran mused about what the Rays needed to do to withstand the long-term loss of Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria.

"Sometimes you can get away with a few mistakes here and there, but we have to keep those to a minimum and make sure we pretty much do everything by the book," Floyd said. "The one good thing is we've been doing it thus far, aside from a few mess-ups here and there."

The Rays, however, racked up a few more of those mess-ups on the basepaths Tuesday night, miscues that went a long way toward sealing their fate in a 2-1 loss to the Oakland A's.

First the Rays ran themselves out of a potentially lucrative fifth inning, recording a pair of outs on the bases on a botched squeeze bunt and a pickoff. Then, in the eighth, Willy Aybar lost track of the number of outs and got doubled off first base by about 85 feet as he inexplicably rounded second and was halfway to third when left fielder Emil Brown caught a routine fly by Eric Hinske.

"We kind of messed things up," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "We shot ourselves in the foot."

The most egregious problems came in the fifth, which began with a Ben Zobrist double and an infield single by Jason Bartlett to put runners at the corners with nobody out.

The Rays then called for a safety squeeze with Akinori Iwamura at the plate, and the A's might have seen it coming. After Iwamura took Gio Gonzalez's first pitch for a ball, catcher Kurt Suzuki fired down to third base to try to keep Zobrist honest.

Iwamura was able to get a bunt down on the next pitch, but it went to the worst possible spot. Rather than angling it toward first base, it went straight back to Gonzalez. Zobrist was going as soon as he saw the ball bunted fair, and he had nowhere to go when the pitcher fielded the ball and tagged him out.

"I was not skilled enough to put the bunt down towards first base," Iwamura said through his interpreter. "I'll work on it."

Compounding that mistake, Gonzalez immediately picked Bartlett off second base for the second out of the inning. Those two outs gave him enough breathing room to emerge from the inning unscathed even after B.J. Upton followed with a single that moved Iwamura to third, as Carlos Pena flied to right for the third out.

Missed chances kept on piling up for the Rays, who put at least one man on base every inning from the third through the ninth but managed to scratch out only one run.

If only one of the runners the Rays gave away had come around to score, who knows what would have happened? As it was, their only tally came in the third, when Zobrist walked, Bartlett doubled him to third and Iwamura drove him home on a sacrifice fly.

"You feel bad after a game like that, because we did have our chances and we blew it," said Zobrist. "It's just one of those games you wish you could have back again, but we'll just go get 'em tomorrow."

Scott Kazmir will have to wait a few more days before he can build on the progress he felt Tuesday night. In his first start since making some changes to his delivery – specifically, shortening his stride – Kazmir looked and felt good once he got used to the new routine.

The only blemish on his five-inning appearance, aside from the fact that it lasted only five innings, came in the second inning. Kazmir wasted a 1-2 edge on Brown and issued three straight balls for a walk, then allowed a long homer to left-center by Bobby Crosby on a full-count pitch.

"That's where I always get hurt," Kazmir said. "It always ends up being that 3-2 pitch or something behind in the count where I just kind of try to get a strike with it, kind of let up just a little bit and end up giving up a home run with a fastball."

He had a two-out hiccup the following inning, allowing a couple more base-runners, but got out of it and retired the final seven men he faced before being lifted with 97 pitches. The left-hander hasn't lasted more than five innings or picked up a win in four consecutive starts, but he considered Tuesday something of a breakthrough.

"I've just got to go deeper into the game, that's the bottom line," Kazmir said. "But I think there's a lot of things I can take out of this start, especially the last three innings."

Add another run or two and Kazmir might have had something tangible to tack onto his pleasure with his new mechanics. But the Rays figure to have their share of games like this as they adjust to their new roster reality.

Tampa Bay's margin of error is smaller than it had been with Crawford and Longoria out of commission, but the last thing Maddon wants is to see others try to overcompensate.

"I'm sure it's more that everybody feels it's their responsibility to pick things up," Maddon said. "I just want us to keep playing the same game that we've been playing to this point."

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

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