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Longoria Makes It Look Easy

AP Photo

Evan Longoria (left), who hit two home runs, celebrates Saturday night's win over Baltimore with teammate Eric Hinske.

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By CARTER GADDIS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 25, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Evan Longoria didn't see "Star Wars" in the theater 15 times when it came out the summer of '77. Anything he admits to knowing about disco music, he probably learned from the 1997 movie "Boogie Nights."

Watergate? Bruce Jenner? The Iran hostage crisis? Maybe he read about them in history class at Long Beach State.

Leave it to a guy born in 1985 to steal '70s night Saturday at Tropicana Field.

Longoria had two home runs and six RBIs by the fourth inning of Tampa Bay's 11-4 victory against the Orioles in front of the fourth-largest home crowd of the season, 30,445, most of which stuck around afterward to watch the Commodores perform some of their '70s classics like "Brick House" and "Easy."

It wasn't so much the gaudy production for the rookie third baseman as it was the timing. Longoria's first homer, a three-run blast off Orioles starter Steve Trachsel, capped a four-run first inning.

Longoria's second homer, his seventh of the season, gave him the American League rookie lead and came off Trachsel in the second to cap a five-run inning, putting the game out of reach early.

"Those are just flashes of what Longoria is capable of doing," said Rays first baseman Carlos Pena, who went 3-for-3 and finished a home run short of the cycle. "It's going to be fun watching his career, and I'm just glad I'm around to see it."

Despite a shaky beginning for starter Edwin Jackson, the early offensive outburst put the Rays well on their way to moving nine games better than .500 (29-20) for the first time in franchise history and to clinching their eighth series victory in their past 10.

Jackson's first 28 pitches produced 20 balls, and he walked four of the first six Orioles batters. Yet, he escaped the first inning by getting Luke Scott to ground into a bases-loaded double play on which he covered first after Pena tagged Kevin Millar between first and second.

After that alarming first inning, Jackson was able to settle into his seat in the dugout and watch his teammates produce the exact number of runs (nine) in the first two innings that they scored for him over his past seven starts.

"It was a great feeling, especially on a day you know you're not feeling too well," Jackson said. "You know the way the pitch count is, you've thrown a lot of pitches and you're really not going to be in there deep in the game, so you just battle to get through five."

Jackson (3-3) said he never felt comfortable throughout, but he did manage to hang around through five, earning his first victory since his second start of the season on April 10.

Longoria, meanwhile, set a Rays rookie record with his six RBIs and had a chance to add to that, but he lined into a bases-loaded double play in the eighth. His first home run traveled 458 feet down the left-field line, and his second took the same route to go 376 feet and out.

He credited his success at the plate, in part, to selectivity.

"You see curve balls in the dirt that if I'm going bad I might be swinging at them," Longoria said. "But you let those go and get to the pitches that you can handle. You just give yourself a better chance to succeed by taking those pitches."

And by hitting the ones you don't take 458 feet.

"Longo was very big for us tonight, obviously," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "He's going to continue to get better. It's just a matter of time over the course of the next couple of months, the next couple of years, you're going to see that often."

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