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Breaking Point At Last For Rays

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 14, 2008

CLEVELAND Wake the Rays when the All-Star break is over.

That's what Joe Maddon hopes to do when the players assemble for a workout Thursday afternoon, presumably having shaken off the doldrums that have enveloped them as they staggered to seven consecutive losses in the final week of the first half.

A collapse punctuated by a cursory 5-2 loss to the Indians on Sunday has cost the Rays 5 1/2 games in the standings in a week's time. A week ago today, they held a five-game edge on the second-place Red Sox. After Boston's win over Baltimore on Sunday, the Rays are in second themselves, a half-game back.

They earned that downward spiral by dropping four straight to an Indians team that had entered the series on a 10-game skid, with Tampa Bay's top three starting pitchers getting knocked around in the final three games.

All-Star Scott Kazmir was the last to take his lumps, allowing five runs in six innings Sunday in an uninspired performance in which he squandered a rare Rays lead. Afterward, he admitted to a lack of confidence during his outing, saying he was second-guessing himself on his pitch selection even as he was in the midst of his delivery.

"I've just got to get that out of my head, I guess," he said. "It just feels like the confidence isn't there right now."

There seems to be a lot of that going around these days for the Rays. Their offense certainly hasn't inspired much fear in the opposition of late, and Sunday's effort was about as distressing as it gets.

Indians starter Jeremy Sowers managed to walk a career-high seven batters in his four innings, and indeed walked Akinori Iwamura with the bases loaded in the second to force in the game's first run. But the lefty also managed to strike out a career-high eight as he lowered his ERA from 7.81 to 7.51.

After Iwamura and Willy Aybar drew consecutive walks from Sowers with one out in the fourth inning, Indians pitchers retired the final 17 Rays batters in order. Eight of them struck out, giving the Rays a total of 14 whiffs in the game, and Tampa Bay's three hits matched a season low.

Obviously, this sort of thing can't continue, but no one was interested in exploring solutions Sunday afternoon.

"We're going to go through a bump, we're going to go through a slow stage," Kazmir said. "We've just got to be able to bounce back. Today we were looking to do that, but it didn't happen. Hopefully this next half we put it behind us and get right back on track."

For the time being, though, there's nothing the Rays need more than a few days away from the ballpark. They'll still be right in the thick of things when they start back up against the Blue Jays on Friday, their 55-39 mark by far the best record in franchise history at the break.

By the time Maddon lays out his second-half expectations in a few days at Tropicana Field, his team's woeful performance heading into the break might seem distant enough that it can be brushed aside.

"Of course we hate what just happened over the last week," Maddon said. "But we're sitting in a very good spot right now based on a lot of the good stuff that we've done, so I don't want all of the good stuff to be forgotten just overnight. That would be absolutely wrong. But I want us to focus on the things that got us to this point and make sure that we nurture that going into the second half."

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

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