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Rays Lower The Broom

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 3, 2008

Updated: 07/03/2008 12:22 am

ST. PETERSBURG - The Rays and Red Sox parted ways Wednesday night, the schedule set to keep them apart for the next seven weeks.

Before Boston split town for its ho-hum weekend series at Yankee Stadium, though, the Rays took the opportunity to sear their for-real status into the defending world champions' consciousness. An astonishing seventh inning that followed six frames of uninspired ball by the home team gave the Rays a 7-6 victory that shouldn't have trouble remaining fresh in everyone's mind until the teams meet again Sept. 8 at Fenway Park.

"We're hungry," said Scott Kazmir. "I don't know how else to explain it."

Tampa Bay's late rally made for a satisfying ending for the increasing numbers of blue-clad fans among the full house of 36,048 - the fourth sellout at Tropicana Field this season. Brooms were a common accessory as the Rays gunned for a 31/2-game lead in the division, and they were finally pulled out after six innings of being stashed under seats.

It was a gradual turnaround in fortunes that occurred during the course of one long half-inning. Eleven Rays batted and 54 pitches were thrown by four Red Sox relievers as Tampa Bay dismantled a 4-1 deficit that had been hung on Kazmir.

The foreshocks came at the hand of Manny Delcarmen, who saw Jason Bartlett lead off the seventh with a double and score on an Akinori Iwamura single before allowing another single to Carl Crawford. That was it for Delcarmen, who gave way to an immediately rattled Craig Hansen. The right-hander walked B.J. Upton to load the bases, then walked Carlos Pena on five pitches to force in a run that made it 4-3.

Evan Longoria was up next, and he did what has become expected of him by lining the 1-1 delivery into the gap in left-center to drive home two and give the Rays their first lead of the game.

"Once this team gets going," said Longoria, "it's tough to stop us."

True enough, as the Rays kept rolling even after the Sox managed to tally a couple of outs. Bartlett picked up his second hit of the inning, a solid single to center off Javier Lopez, to up the lead to 7-4.

"I love it," said Kazmir. "You just look how we approach our at-bats. We know when guys are in trouble - we're not going to help guys out. We just don't play selfish baseball right now and that's why we won today."

Boston got one back off Gary Glover in the eighth when Dustin Pedroia collected a two-out double that drove in Julio Lugo. Pedroia had homered, tripled and doubled in his first three at-bats, leaving him a single shy of the cycle.

A Bartlett error opened the ninth, allowing Manny Ramirez to reach base, and Mike Lowell put men at first and third with a single. Kevin Youkilis then looked to have tied the game with a deep drive to center, but Upton tracked it down and made the catch with his back to the infield just before crashing into the wall, limiting the damage to a sacrifice fly.

"I was going to get it," said Upton. "That's the only thing on my mind, was catching it. If that ball drops, it's a totally different game - we might still be out there."

Lowell handed the Rays the second out of the inning, taking off for second and getting cut down easily by Dioner Navarro. Dan Wheeler then set off pandemonium by getting a called third strike on Jason Varitek as the strains of "Sweet Caroline" blasted mockingly from the sound system.

No one could have foreseen such an ending considering the way the Rays slumbered through the first two-thirds of the game. After a rough first inning in which Tampa Bay scored only once despite putting four runners on base, Daisuke Matsuzaka settled down.

He ultimately retired 10 of 11 batters to close out his five-inning stint, but the high pitch counts he racked up early on ended up costing the Sox as the Rays found their opening.

"You've got to get 'em when you can against them," said Longoria. "We definitely haven't figured out how to win at their place and that's one thing we need to do, but the good thing is they can't beat us here, either."

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

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