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Garza, Bartlett Give Rays Some Needed Strength

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By JOE HENDERSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 24, 2008

Updated: 02/24/2008 12:11 am

ST. PETERSBURG - Matt Garza was ready to quit baseball. He was a freshman pitcher for Fresno State in 2003 and to say it wasn't going well is an understatement. He was just 1-6 and had allowed 46 runs in 43 1/3 innings.

"Horrible. Do the math," he said.

We did. It's an ERA of 9.55.

"I was a week away from quitting but I talked to my fiancee. She gave me some words for advice and I keep them to this day," he said.

Those must have been good words. Just five years later, Garza not only is still in the game, but he also is central to the Rays' hopes for a major improvement this season.

With starting pitching so hard to find, Rays manager Joe Maddon was delighted to add Garza - someone who can fit in comfortably behind Scott Kazmir and James Shields - to the rotation.

"We saw what Kaz and Shields could do last year but they still needed that one other guy at least on a consistent basis," Maddon said. "That's kind of a good feel."

Shocking Blockbuster

The Rays acquired Garza, along with shortstop Jason Bartlett and minor-leaguer Eduardo Morlan, in the whopper of a trade in November that sent Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie to the Twins. That immediately provided answers to what had been two major question marks.

"I was shocked at first. It's not fun to get traded. You have to go to a different team, start all over, meet new people," Bartlett said. "I met good people in Minnesota; it was a great place to play. But this is a great opportunity and it will only get better."

He wasn't alone in his surprise. No one saw it coming, although in hindsight maybe we should have. Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman had focused on starting pitching and shortstop as his primary offseason targets.

"We feel like we have a lot of good arms in our upper minor-league system but we wanted somebody who could contribute in '08 and be part of our nucleus going forward," Friedman said. "It's tough to trade for somebody with the ceiling of Matt Garza. You have to give up talent to get talent. We believe both Garza and Bartlett will improve our pitching."

Bartlett did commit a league-high 23 errors at shortstop (26 overall) last season, which caused an eyebrow or two to rise, but Friedman argues that number is misleading because Bartlett's range allows him to get to more balls than most other shortstops.

"I don't think there's a pitcher alive who doesn't realize what a shortstop can or cannot do," Maddon said. "Now you've got the added confidence of having Bartlett back there. He's going to demonstrate his range and abilities and that augments the confidence, period."

And with the move of Akinori Iwamura to second, the Rays finally may begin to show some strength up the middle.

"So many balls go up the middle, but they'll close the ground," Kazmir said. "We were struggling on that. We had a lot of opportunities for double plays that we didn't capitalize on but now it seems automatic. Wow. It's huge."

Fits Right In

There was a big fuss made about trading Young, the runner-up as American League Rookie of the Year. It was a bold move for sure. But Garza's 3.67 ERA led all AL rookie pitchers, and in 2006, he made the jump all the way from Single-A to the majors despite the Twins' usual take-it-easy approach with young players.

"You stand behind him at home plate and the ball has a lot of late carry to it. It's got that little thing at the end, kind of like Kaz has," Maddon said. "The hitter is going to feel like it's going to speed up where he doesn't see it as well at the end. His other stuff is good."

Garza also brings a little moxie to the mound.

"I've always been that way. There's no reason not to feel good. I'm in the major leagues, the top of the game. I faced my hard times in college and it didn't kill me. I realized that people want to see a confident guy. No one wants to see a guy with droopy shoulders," he said.

That's one thing people want to see for sure.

They also want to see a grounder up the middle by the other team turn into an out. And they want to see if the Rays can assemble the kind of pitching staff that gives them a chance to compete in the AL East.

This trade is supposed to be a leap in that direction. Now, all it has to do is work.

The clubhouse is sold.

"It's the team's way of showing they're addressing needs to win now as opposed to addressing the future, which is what we've done here for a long time - go pick up a couple of more 18-, 19-year-old guys. That's great. They've probably built one of the best collections of young talent I've seen in a long time," outfielder Rocco Baldelli said.

"But to go get those two guys shows they want to win right now and we're happy to see it."

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