TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Garza Confident Of Success

ADVERTISEMENT

By MARC LANCASTER

mlancaster@tampatrib.com

Published: October 13, 2008

BOSTON - Following Saturday night's game, a reporter mentioned to Matt Garza that it was a good thing the Rays won Game 2, since going to Fenway Park down 2-0 to face Jon Lester might not have been very pleasant for Tampa Bay.

A fair point, as the Boston lefty has dominated the Rays in three starts this season (allowing two earned runs in 20 innings), but Garza took exception.

"Lester's had a great year this year," Garza said. "He's been throwing the crap out of the ball. But my year wasn't that bad, either, you know? You're kind of downplaying me.

"Everybody's hyping up Lester. Yeah, he's a great pitcher, he's had a lot of success this year. But myself, on the road, I've had a lot of success, too, and especially against Boston I've had a lot of success. So I'm going to go in confident and see what happens after nine."

Garza actually has been notably better at home this year (7-3, 2.89 ERA) than on the road (4-6, 4.53), but his three best starts -complete-game victories against Florida, Toronto and Texas - came away from home.

The right-hander will be facing Boston for the fifth time this year. He posted one outstanding start against the Red Sox during the regular season, allowing one unearned run over seven innings on July 1 at Tropicana Field, but he didn't last longer than 5 1/3 innings in any of the other three games, allowing a total of 11 earned runs.

MADDON STICKS BY KAZMIR

Twice Sunday - in the early morning hours following the Game 2 win and during the early evening in a news conference at Fenway Park, Joe Maddon insisted the embattled Scott Kazmir would get the ball for his next turn in the rotation.

"Yeah, absolutely he's going to pitch," Maddon said upon arriving in Boston. "I have a lot of confidence. This last outing he wasn't so good. The one in Chicago he fought through it and pitched well."

Kazmir didn't seem nearly as confident after Game 2, talking quietly about how the slider that used to be his trademark isn't biting and he has lost velocity. The lefty's slider hasn't been there for him most of the season, perhaps because of his initial reluctance to throw it after missing the first month of the season with elbow problems.

Now Kazmir says he feels like he's out of his groove, but Maddon continues to insist the pitcher could have everything click together at any moment.

"I'm not backing down," Maddon said.

HOW BIG WAS IT?

The player perhaps most lauded in the Rays' clubhouse for his efforts during the marathon Game 2 win was Dan Wheeler, who expended 48 pitches as he worked 31/3 innings (just three outs fewer than Kazmir recorded) to extend the game.

He was so impressive that pitching coach Jim Hickey coined a word Sunday to describe what the veteran had done.

"It was behemothian," Hickey said. "It couldn't get any bigger. It was gigantic."

There was some question about whether Wheeler would be available for today's game. The pitcher said he would be and Hickey guessed that might be the case, but Maddon preferred to reserve judgment until talking to Wheeler today.

SMART MOVE

The Rays had decided before Saturday's game not to travel to Boston until Sunday, and they were pretty pleased with themselves after enduring the five-hour, 27-minute marathon. After the game, Maddon immediately canceled a planned 6:30 p.m. workout at Fenway and the team pushed the departure time of its charter flight back two hours to 2 p.m.

"It was great," Maddon said of the changes. "It absolutely worked."

Marc Lancaster

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT