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Shields Goes From Gem To Bust

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 4, 2008

BOSTON - It took 98 pitches last Sunday for James Shields to assemble the best game of his major-league career, a two-hit shutout of the Red Sox at Tropicana Field.

Shields threw 98 pitches again Saturday night against those same Red Sox, but the outing ranked among his worst ever.

"It was pretty much terrible," he said.

Gone from the game before he could finish the fourth inning, Shields uncharacteristically left the Rays with little chance to pull out a victory and his team never recovered as the Red Sox rolled 12-4.

It was Tampa Bay's most lopsided defeat this season and it came at an inopportune time on the heels of a series-opening setback Friday night - a loss that had Shields fixated on righting the ship.

"After last night I felt I needed to come in here and do a good job and I didn't do that at all," Shields said. "I hurt our bullpen, I hurt our team today."

With the Rays now on the verge of suffering the same fate as the Red Sox did at the Trop last weekend, the first two games of the series have served as a helpful reminder that good starting pitching isn't optional when it comes to winning games.

Tampa Bay's hurlers allowed just five runs in sweeping three games last weekend, but Boston's hitters have looked far more comfortable in the familiar environs of Fenway Park. Though it took a while for the Sox to start raking Edwin Jackson on Friday, they were all over Shields from the time he threw his first pitch.

He was greeted by a pair of well-placed singles by Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, an RBI double off the bat of David Ortiz and a two-run single by Manny Ramirez by the time he was able to record his first out. Shields needed 32 pitches to navigate the first inning and 29 more to emerge from the bottom of the second with one more tally on Boston's ledger.

Though the deficit was only 4-2 at that point, thanks to Gabe Gross' two-run homer off Josh Beckett in the top half, Shields' hefty pitch count already had ensured that the Rays' prime innings-eater would be leaving plenty of work to the bullpen.

"He just wasn't comfortable," said Rays manager Joe Maddon. "Nothing totally out of whack, but just wasn't able to make the pitches that he normally makes."

Tampa Bay's one chance to make a stand came in the fourth inning, with the score now 5-2, after three consecutive hits against Beckett to open the frame. With one run already in on an RBI single by Evan Longoria, the Rays had the bases loaded with one out. Nathan Haynes flied to left and Carlos Pena decided to try and push it, tagging up and heading home, but Ramirez gunned him down easily and the inning was over.

When Shields walked Kevin Youkilis on a full-count pitch with two out in the fourth - his 98th delivery of the game - Maddon was out of the dugout in a hurry, signaling for reliever J.P. Howell.

Only twice in his previous 58 big-league starts had Shields been removed from a game before completing four innings, but he just didn't have it Saturday - allowing 10 hits and seven earned runs - even though he felt he made some good pitches.

"There were some groundballs; it wasn't like he was just getting smoked all over the place," Maddon said. "But that led to momentum for them."

It never ebbed, as Beckett tightened it up and shut down everyone but Akinori Iwamura for the balance of his outing. The Rays' leadoff man singled in the fifth and homered over the Green Monster in the eighth, but Beckett retired every other Rays batter he faced in his final four innings.

In the meantime, the Red Sox stretched their lead by scoring twice off Howell in the sixth and three times off Scott Dohmann in the eighth.

The Rays will get their chance to bounce back today, but Shields will have to wait until next weekend to get himself back on track. He was already thinking ahead Saturday night.

"I'm going to go on and try to do something special the next game," he said.

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