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Rays Draw A Blank Against Yankees

The Associated Press

Alex Rodriguez reacts as a fan is struck by a foul ball hit by Tampa Bay Rays' Dioner Navarro during the second inning.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

NEW YORK - Much was made in the Big Apple of the upstart Rays' first visit to Yankee Stadium as a team to be taken seriously.

Nothing that occurred Tuesday night altered that new reality, but the sight of a guy well-traveled on the postseason path the Rays are yearning to reach carving up Tampa Bay's lineup brought to mind the bad old days for the visitors.

The Rays never had a chance against Andy Pettitte, barely managing to square up any of the seasoned lefty's offerings over the course of eight innings as the Yankees cruised to a 5-0 victory. It was the kind of game the Rays haven't played lately in just about every respect.

The Rays lost their first nine-inning game since June 22. They dropped back-to-back contests for the first time in nearly a month, dating to losses June 10-11 against the Angels in Anaheim. And it represented the first time their offense was completely shut out since a 6-0 blanking by the White Sox way back on April 20.

Perhaps because the Rays have avoided such showings for so long, Manager Joe Maddon shrugged this one off.

"You can't denigrate your team just because you didn't win a game," Maddon said. "When you face pitching like that, they can make a lot of teams look bad."

Pettitte, who had surrendered 25 hits and 11 runs over 16 innings in three starts against the Rays earlier this season, looked a lot more like the guy who had owned Tampa Bay batters through the first 13 seasons of his career. Of the 24 outs he recorded, all but six came on strikeouts, groundouts or pop-ups.

"In the first inning, I thought we were a little bit expansive with our strike zone," Maddon said. "A guy like Pettitte, if he smells that, he'll take advantage of it."

The veteran turned over the Rays' lineup effortlessly, allowing only a bad-hop single by Carlos Pena in the fourth between B.J. Upton's first-inning double and leadoff single in the seventh. Upton was the only Ray to get past first base, as he stole second in the seventh to set up Tampa Bay's only scoring chance.

The Yankees led 2-0 at that point on Derek Jeter's two-out double off Scott Kazmir in the third, but the game still could have been had. Someone needed to make a play, and Jeter made two of them to lock it up for the Yankees.

First, he tracked down a hard shot up the middle by Dioner Navarro and kept it on the infield, preventing Upton from scoring and putting runners at the corners with two out. The Yankee captain then finished the job by ranging far to his right to run down a grounder in the hole by Willy Aybar before spinning and forcing Navarro out at second to end the inning.

It was a spectacular play that got the crowd going and had Pettitte pumping his fist and slapping his glove in celebration.

"You don't want to say it took the air out of us," said Upton, "but runs were definitely hard to come by tonight and that would have been a big run and he saved one."

With Pettitte pitching as well as he did, the Rays were fortunate to have a chance at it before Gary Glover gave up three runs in the eighth.

That was in part a testament to Kazmir, who struck out nine and looked sharp overall but once again was undone by his inability to reach even the sixth inning. He departed after five, having thrown 97 pitches and failed to complete six innings for the fifth consecutive start.

"I've just got to shorten up my innings," Kazmir said. "It feels like I'm going 3-2 with everyone, and I've just got to get the quick out."

The two runs he surrendered on one hanging changeup to Jeter led to his first loss to the Yankees in exactly two years. He had allowed only two earned runs over 24 innings in his previous four starts against them.

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

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