TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Longoria Provides Late-Inning Heroics

AP Photo

Oakland Athletics right fielder Emil Brown, right, catches a pop fly hit by Tampa Bay Rays' Carl Crawford and avoids a collision with second baseman Gregorio Petit

ADVERTISEMENT

By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 20, 2008

OAKLAND Making his daily rounds in the outfield during batting practice Monday afternoon, Joe Maddon made sure to pay a visit to Jason Hammel. His long reliever hadn't appeared in a game since May 7, and he was blunt in admitting all the down time was starting to get to him.

"Basically, he came out and said, 'How you feeling?'" Hammel said, "and I said, 'Pretty damn near insanity right now.'"

Maddon told him to hang in there, that he would get in a game soon and come up big for the Rays. The manager didn't necessarily expect it to happen a few hours later, but it did.

Hammel's three scoreless innings of relief kept the Rays afloat after they lost a lead during regulation, and the pitcher was rewarded when a monstrous Evan Longoria two-run homer in the top of the 13th inning paved the way for a hard-earned 7-6 Rays victory.

It wasn't over until Troy Percival survived a scare in the bottom of the 13th, with one Oakland run scoring on a two-out walk to Emil Brown and a triple by Daric Barton that just missed being a home run. But Percival pulled it together and got Kurt Suzuki to fly out with the tying run on third, securing his 12th save and getting the Rays a welcome victory on the heels of two walk-off losses to the Cardinals.

"We lost some tough games in St. Louis, but I knew that wouldn't bother our guys," said Maddon. "We've been up for every game and we were up again today. Even though they came back and tied it up late, the dugout was fantastic."

Whatever lull there might have been disappeared in the 13th when Carlos Pena led off with a single against former Ray Chad Gaudin and Longoria followed with a towering homer to left, his third hit of the night.

The rookie third baseman, who now has eight hits in his last 18 at-bats as he pulls out of what was a 7-for-50 slump, said he was just trying to move Pena into scoring position.

"I was just thinking, 'Get a base hit, hit the ball up the middle, stay out of the double play,'" he said.

But Gaudin left a fastball up and Longoria jumped on it.

"He crushed that," said Maddon.

The homer eventually made a winner of Hammel, who pitched the 10th, 11th and 12th innings without serious difficulty and, apparently, no concern that one slip-up would give the A's the game.

"I honestly wasn't thinking about that," said Hammel. "I was too excited to be in there. I had almost forgotten what to do."

Nearly forgotten by the end of the evening was an uncharacteristically rough start for James Shields. He issued a rare two-out walk – his only free pass in 7 2/3 innings – to Jack Cust in the first and got behind 2-0 on the next hitter, Frank Thomas. The Big Hurt hadn't homered in 102 at-bats stretching back 30 games, the second-longest drought of his career, but he demolished the next delivery from Shields, sending it over the wall in dead center for a 2-0 A's lead.

Brown then led off the second with a homer on a 1-0 pitch and Shields had matched the number of longballs he had allowed all season in a span of six batters.

After surrendering 28 homers last season, third-most in the American League, Shields had been far stingier to open this campaign. The only homers he had served up in his first nine starts were to the Yankees' Hideki Matsui on April 6 and the Blue Jays' Vernon Wells on April 22, putting him fifth among big-league starters with 0.31 homers allowed per nine innings.

Why was Monday different? In part because Shields thought home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman forced him to get a little too much of the plate for strikes.

"I felt early in the game I was throwing quality pitches and the umpire wasn't giving them to me," he said. "I felt I was getting squeezed a little bit, but that's part of the game. He was consistent with me the rest of the night."

Shields had to sweat it out for a few innings, but the Rays' hitters finally bailed him out by getting to Oakland starter Joe Blanton and the A's bullpen. It was only fitting that the longball played a key role in getting the Rays' going.

Eric Hinske, who talked his way into the starting lineup despite being 1-for-15 in his career against Blanton entering the game, followed a third-inning double with a two-run laser in the fifth. His screaming liner skipped off the top of the outfield wall in right, hit the façade behind it and bounced back into the field, prompting Brown to fire the ball into second base. But first base umpire Brian Gorman had correctly ruled it a home run and the Rays were on the board, down 3-2.

Tampa Bay took a short-lived lead the following inning as Carl Crawford led off with a double and came around to score on a double by Longoria to tie it up and Pena, who had been intentionally walked, crossed the plate on Cliff Floyd groundout.

Thomas tied it right back up at 4-4 in the bottom of the sixth, getting Blanton off the hook with a two-out homer to left on a 1-0 pitch, but the Rays answered in the seventh. A one-out walk drawn by Jason Bartlett paid off when Akinori Iwamura roped a double to the wall in left off reliever Joey Devine to score his double-play partner.

That run had Shields poised for his fifth victory of the season, and he seemed on his way as he took the mound to start the eighth with only 87 pitches thrown on the evening. Within moments, he had recorded a pair of outs, but that brought the troublesome Cust to the plate. Shields missed inside with a breaking balls that dived down and hit Cust in the foot, putting him on first base.

Thomas followed with a single and was lifted for a pinch-runner before Ryan Sweeney chalked up a single to right of his own to bring home Rajai Davis, pinch-running for Cust, and tie the game again. That was it for Shields, who watched Gary Glover keep the game knotted by getting Brown to pop out.

Tampa Bay's offense didn't get a chance to punch back immediately. A's closer Huston Street came on for the ninth and proceeded to strike out five of the six batters he faced as the game rolled into extra innings.

The Rays dodged a bullet in the 10th when Hammel walked Bobby Crosby to open the inning. Davis tried to bunt him into scoring position, but popped a soft liner straight at a charging Pena. The first baseman turned and fired to a moving Iwamura, who caught the ball and tapped the bag in one motion to double off Crosby. Pinch-hitter Mike Sweeney then grounded to short to send it to the 11th.

Oakland put the winning run in scoring position that inning when Brown dropped a one-out double down the right-field line. After an intentional walk to Barton, though, Hammel got Kurt Suzuki to fly out and fanned Gregorio Petit.

Petit, who made his big-league debut Sunday, made the play of the 12th inning. After Iwamura drew a four-pitch leadoff walk, giving the Rays their first base-runner since the eighth, Crawford flew out and Iwamura tried to steal second. He appeared to have the bag, but Petit went toward home to get the throw from Suzuki, then lunged back and swiped with his glove to tag Iwamura out. B.J. Upton lined to center and it was on to the bottom half.

Hammel got the A's in order there, setting the stage for the climactic 13th.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT