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Shields Off, Offense Falls Short In Game 6

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

James Shields looks away after Kevin Youkilis hit a home run in the second inning.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 19, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - The Rays will experience another first in a season of them tonight at Tropicana Field, and it could go either way.

Either they'll win and move on to the World Series or they'll lose in their first-ever elimination game and see their magical season fall one game short of giving themselves a chance to win it all.

Saturday night's 4-2 loss to the Red Sox saw to that, as the Rays again failed to close out the defending world champions. And unlike in Game 5 on Thursday night in Boston, the Rays never really had the upper hand in this one.

Tropicana Field was loud early, with the tarps coming off to allow around 6,000 more fans in the building for a total attendance of 40,947. But it wasn't long before the minority faction of Boston fans was making most of the noise.

Once Kevin Youkilis answered B.J. Upton's first-inning homer with one of his own in the second, the Red Sox continued to answer everything the Rays did, and they were able to hold on through the final innings.

In the end, Tampa Bay was outpitched. James Shields was not at his sharpest in the biggest start of his life, and Josh Beckett rebounded from an ugly Game 2 start to limit the Rays to a pair of solo homers before handing it over to an effective Sox bullpen.

That was the case even though Beckett clearly was not his usual self, reaching only the lower-90s on his fastball. Nonetheless, the Rays didn't send more than four men to the plate in any of his five innings, a sharp contrast to the beating they administered to the postseason ace a week earlier at the Trop.

It looked like the Rays might repeat that performance when Upton cranked a full-count pitch from Beckett out to left-center for his seventh homer of the postseason and Carlos Pena followed it with a walk. But Beckett got out of the inning with a double play and mostly cruised from that point after Youkilis led off the second with a bomb against Shields.

The Red Sox took the lead in the third when Shields lost his feel for the strike zone. A one-out walk to Dustin Pedroia came back to haunt him when David Ortiz doubled and Youkilis brought home the go-ahead run on a groundout. Shields would walk two more in the inning to load the bases, but he retired Mark Kotsay to prevent further damage.

The next two runs scored on homers by the No. 9 hitters in each lineup, neither of whom could have been expected to clear the fences.

Jason Bartlett got it started in the fifth, going deep with two out and nobody on after Dioner Navarro had been cut down by about 10 feet as he tried to steal second base. Bartlett had homered only once in 454 at-bats during the regular season, and that shot Aug. 31 against the Orioles was his first homer since Aug. 27, 2007.

Not to be outdone, the slumping Jason Varitek untied the game with a two-out homer of his own the following inning. Varitek was hitless in the ALCS and 3-for-28 in the postseason when he lifted a 2-0 pitch from Shields over the wall in right-center. It was the Boston captain's first homer since a three-run shot at Tropicana Field on Sept. 15, the night the Red Sox routed Scott Kazmir and the Rays 13-5.

The Red Sox would tack on another run in the sixth after Shields departed following an infield single by Coco Crisp. A throwing error by Bartlett kept the inning alive and Ortiz's single off J.P. Howell made it 4-2 Boston.

Hideki Okajima and Justin Masterson handled the Rays with ease for three innings before Jonathan Papelbon came on in the ninth to extend his record string of scoreless postseason innings to 25, and that was it.

Now, Tampa Bay will be left to try to pin another loss on Boston's best pitcher, Jon Lester, whom they beat at Fenway Park on Monday in Game 3. The Rays will send Matt Garza to the mound hoping he can match his six-inning, one-run effort from that game.

The Rays hoped it wouldn't come to this, but they tempted fate by blowing a seven-run lead in Boston. Now they'll have to do it the hard way.

Reporter Marc Lancaster can be reached at (813) 259-7227.

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