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Rays Beat White Sox, Lead Series 2-0

Tribune photo by JASON BEHNKEN

Rays players Akinori Iwamura left and Jason Bartlett right celebrate as Iwamura crosses home plate after hitting a home run.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 3, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Tropicana Field has been very good to the Rays this season, and they rewarded the fans that packed the place once again Friday night with another huge victory.

Tampa Bay's 6-2 triumph over the White Sox put the Rays a win away from reaching the American League Championship Series as they boarded a flight to Chicago Friday night.

And as much as the Rays have enjoyed all the big moments they have experienced at the Trop this season, they'd love nothing more than to finish the White Sox off at U.S. Cellular Field this weekend. The teams will work out Saturday afternoon before reconvening Sunday for a potentially decisive Game 3.

The Rays reached the brink of the ALCS with another all-around effort that kept a full house of 35,257 fired up from the second inning on. The pitching staff again deserved the bulk of the credit, with Scott Kazmir rebounding from a dreadful opening frame to pick up the win and the bullpen continuing to hold the White Sox at bay.

But the Rays wouldn't have had a lead to cling to in the late innings if not for Akinori Iwamura's second big hit in as many games, an opposite-field two-run homer off Mark Buehrle in the fifth that put the Rays up 3-2 after they had trailed since the first.

The Rays would tack on three more runs in their final trip to the plate. Old standbys Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli provided an RBI single apiece in the eighth after B.J. Upton led things off with a triple, then Baldelli motored all the way around from first to score on a bloop double to shallow right-center by Dioner Navarro.

That late outburst gave Chad Bradford plenty of room to work in the ninth and he took care of business despite a blown call by first base umpire Ron Kulpa that didn't do the Rays any favors. Leadoff man Jermaine Dye was ruled safe at first after lining the 13th pitch of his at-bat to Jason Bartlett, who dropped it but still threw to first in time. Replays clearly showed Willy Aybar tagging Dye on the back, but Kulpa apparently didn't see it.

Nonetheless, Bradford did what he does best by squeezing a double-play ball out of Paul Konerko, then struck out Jim Thome on three pitches to punctuate an outstanding Rays effort on the mound that sprang unexpectedly from such an unsightly beginning.

Kazmir's first inning was painful to watch at times. After hitting Orlando Cabrera with his second pitch and following that miscue with a walk to Nick Swisher, it was here-we-go-again time for the lefty. He recorded his first out on his 20th pitch, getting Konerko to pop to Iwamura at second, but the ensuing single by Thome put the Rays in a 1-0 hole.

As bad signs go, that was a pretty significant one; Thome had been 0-for-13 against Kazmir heading into the game. Alexei Ramirez followed with a sacrifice fly that made it 2-0, and a broken-bat infield single by A.J. Pierzynski loaded the bases yet again. But Kazmir managed to stop the White Sox right there, striking out Juan Uribe on his 37th pitch of the inning to keep the deficit manageable.

He wasn't free and clear just yet, though. In fact, when the White Sox put two more men on base with two outs in the second inning, David Price got off his seat in the bullpen and started to do some light stretching. But Kazmir handled that situation, and another two-on-after-two-out mess in the fourth, with aplomb.

As bad as it looked early for the lefty, he ended up turning in a gutty 5 1/3-inning performance that kept the Rays in the game. Kazmir was rewarded for sticking around as long as he did when his teammates managed to find a couple of cracks in Buehrle.

They had picked up a run in the second when Aybar led off with a single and moved around to third on an error before scoring on a single by Navarro. The game would remain 2-1 until the fifth, when Bartlett's one-out single set the table for Iwamura's big moment.

Of course, there was plenty of work still to do from that point. First and foremost came a rematch of Game 1's most heated battle, with Grant Balfour coming on to relieve Kazmir in the sixth just in time to face Orlando Cabrera. Balfour got the better of him again in a quieter at-bat, inducing a groundout on the way to stranding another White Sox runner in scoring position.

J.P. Howell then did Balfour the same favor in the seventh, inheriting runners at first and second with nobody out and setting down three straight Chicago batters. He took it to another level by getting called third strikes for all three outs in the eighth, including one on Nick Swisher to end it after getting behind in the count 3-0.

One inning later it was off to the Windy City with another step in a dream season right there for the taking.

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

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