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Playoff Vets Show Rays The Way To Get It Done

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By TONY FABRIZIO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 22, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Cliff Floyd figures there are a plus and a minus to the Rays' collective naivete about the pressure of playing meaningful games in September and beyond.

"The good part is, we don't have a clue what it's like," he said. "The bad part is, you can worry yourself out of position to be in it."

A young Rays team that has not been in a pennant race, let alone postseason play, is not flying entirely blind.

With September bearing down and a pennant race all but upon them, the Rays can look for insight from Floyd and two other players who have gone the distance to earn World Series rings: Troy Percival and Eric Hinske.

"It matters," said Manager Joe Maddon, whose club begins a three-game series at AL Central-leading Chicago tonight. "Sometimes things ratchet up a bit, and it's nice to have guys who can calm people down in the moment."

Percival, the grizzled and sociable closer, earned a ring with the Angels in 2002, saving seven of the club's 11 postseason victories, including three in the World Series.

Designated hitter Floyd was a reserve on the 1997 Marlins championship team, and outfielder Hinske earned a ring with the Red Sox last year, appearing in all three playoff rounds as a reserve.

Few other Rays have postseason experience. Shortstop Jason Bartlett is the only everyday player with playoff experience, getting it with Minnesota in 2005. Reliever Dan Wheeler appeared in the 2005 World Series for Houston, and newly acquired reliever Chad Bradford has been to the postseason with four teams.

None of the Rays' starting pitchers - Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza, Edwin Jackson and Andy Sonnanstine - has been to the major-league postseason.

Shields, for one, doesn't mind taking some direction from those who have been there.

"I was talking to Hinske the other day, and he said we shouldn't worry about what the Red Sox or the other teams are doing," he said. "We just have to worry about ourselves. That's a veteran player talking, and a guy who's been to the big show. It's good to have those guys in this clubhouse now, telling us that stuff and making us a little more relaxed."

Said Hinske, "September is going to be pretty intense. We've only got one day off, and we're on the road quite a bit. I keep reiterating to the guys the old cliche of trying to be consistent one game at a time. If you do your job, good things are going to happen."

Percival has a "been there, done that" calmness and confidence and doesn't mind talking about his experiences but says he hasn't needed to because of the team's unflappable approach.

"This team is weird," he said. "Twenty minutes after a game, you can come into this locker room and not tell whether it was a win or a loss. They're back there doing weights or getting their treatments. It's a testament that these guys are going after it the right way."

Are the Rays' pitchers ready for the pressure of being in games in which an entire season can hinge on a single pitch? Percival, who is out with a knee injury, thinks so.

"This has been a year when every series has been the series that they're going to fail, or every road trip has been the road trip that they're going to start coming down to Earth," he said. "So it's been a pretty intense atmosphere all along. When you have the Yankees and Boston breathing down your neck the whole year, you have a semi-playoff atmosphere the whole year."

Floyd took a clubhouse leadership role recently, privately and publicly outfielder B.J. Upton to give 100 percent effort. After Upton was disciplined twice for not running out ground balls and embarrassed himself again this week with another base-running mistake, Floyd vowed to the media that Upton "will get it right before I leave here."

Owning a World Series ring and 14 years of major-league experience, Floyd has considerable perspective to offer.

"I think the one thing that surprised me about '97 was how important every pitch was," Floyd said. "From the first pitch to the last pitch, every pitch was the most important pitch of the season. You can talk about the media or the hype around the city, but I wasn't shocked by any of that. But the in-game stuff, I was like, 'Whoa!'"

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