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Angels Jump On Shields Early

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 11, 2008

ANAHEIM, Calif. A selective look at James Shields' stats from Tuesday night's game would lead you to believe he pitched extremely well.

The right-hander turned in his third complete game of the season, struck out a season-high nine without walking a batter and threw 76 of his 108 pitches for strikes. Impressive numbers all, and both Shields and Rays manager Joe Maddon did indeed assert that he pitched well.

Unfortunately, most of his good work came after the Angels batted around on him in the first inning to put the Rays in too deep a hole on a night that saw Jered Weaver pitch even better. In the end, the Angels prevailed 6-1 and Shields was left to fume over a disappointing setback.

"I thought I threw pretty good pitches in the first inning and things didn't go my way," he said, uncharacteristically curt in his postgame remarks.

The Angels scored four times in their first crack at Shields, who at one point in the inning allowed hits to six out of seven batters. The exception in that run, Casey Kotchman grounding into a fielder's choice, was the key play of the game in Maddon's opinion.

Garret Anderson already had put the Angels up 2-0 by yanking a changeup down the right-field line for a one-out homer and Vladimir Guerrero and Torii Hunter followed with a singles. Kotchman then grounded one hard to Willy Aybar at first and he went to Jason Bartlett for one out, with the relay throw going back to a covering Shields. The pitcher thought Bartlett's throw was there in time to get Kotchman but umpire Derryl Cousins disagreed.

"I asked the umpire if he beat me on the throw or I pulled my foot and he said he beat me on the throw," said Shields. "We get the double play and we're out of the inning, so it cost me three more hits and two more runs."

The runs came on an RBI double by Howie Kendrick and infield single by Jeff Mathis before Shields fanned ninth-place hitter Brandon Wood with men at first and third to end it on his 29th pitch. With the damage done, the Rays were left to wonder what might have been.

"To me, that was one of the biggest plays in the game today," said Maddon. "Keeping it 2-0 presents a different outlook."

A smaller deficit would have helped the Rays' confidence, but it's debatable how much that would have mattered based on the way Weaver was pitching. The right-hander made a Rays lineup that was mostly unchanged from the group that pounded out 13 runs the previous night look downright meek, limiting them to four hits in eight innings.

Weaver immediately dealt with any threats that surfaced, following up each of the two walks he issued with double plays. He wasn't hurt by either of the doubles he surrendered to the irrepressible Evan Longoria (who actually made an out in the seventh) and navigated the game unscathed aside from Gabe Gross' two-out solo homer in the eighth.

"He did a nice job of keeping the ball down when he needed to," said Maddon. "He forced us to put the ball on the ground."

Shields forced the action himself once he cleared the first-inning mess his manager feared might occur. Prior to the game, Maddon had wondered if Shields might be a little too fired up for his start because of the circumstances involved.

A Southern California native, Shields was pitching before numerous family and friends. He rented out a suite for a group that included his 82-year-old grandmother, who watched him play professionally for the first time.

But that audience was only part of the set of circumstances that made this start different from the rest. Shields also was trying to make up for lasting only one batter into the second inning in his previous outing, when he was ejected at Boston for his role in the Rays' bench-clearing brawl with the Red Sox. Along those lines, he took the mound Tuesday expecting to miss his next scheduled start because of the suspension he received in connection with the aforementioned incident.

When the idea that Shields might have been a bit too wired at the beginning was presented to the pitcher, he snapped back immediately.

"No, not at all," he said. "I wasn't hyped up at all. They made good pitches, they hit good pitches. It could have easily been the other way. [Maddon] can say all he wants and that's fine."

Not in dispute was the fine work Shields did the rest of the way. Aside from an errant cutter that Guerrero jacked over the center-field wall in the fifth, he was all but untouchable.

"I really thought after that first inning we were going to see all zeroes," said Maddon, "and it was almost that outside of one pitch."

Of course, almost usually isn't good enough, and that was the case here.

The Rays will try to bounce back today and take the series as Scott Kazmir faces John Lackey in a duel of aces, but Shields won't get his chance for redemption until sometime next week. It'll be a long wait.

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

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