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Part-Timers Baldelli, Price Come Up Big On Big Stage

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By KATHERINE SMITH

ksmith@tampatrib.com

Published: October 20, 2008

Updated: 10/20/2008 12:56 am

ST. PETERSBURG - Rays manager Joe Maddon considered playing Rocco Baldelli in Games 5 and 6 of the American League Championship Series, but he opted to save him for Game 7.

Good call.

Baldelli, whose goal all season has been to get healthy enough to contribute, provided the biggest contribution Sunday night with his game-winning RBI single in the fifth inning to give the Rays a 2-1 lead. The right fielder struck out in his other two at bats, but he did enough damage to help send his team to the World Series.

"The thing about Rocco, though, to get him to play on a consistent basis in the outfield, we can't get that done all the time," Maddon said. "He's not able to do it on a nightly basis.

"There's a whole bunch of different variables involved in the way he's used."

That unusual strategy is a result of Baldelli's condition - mitochondrial myopathy, a disorder that causes muscle fatigue. Diagnosed in March, Baldelli physically improved as the season wore on with the help of medication.

Baldelli might never play full-time baseball again, but his part-time contributions have been big this postseason. In his first start of the ALCS in Game 3, Baldelli hit one of the Rays' four home runs, a three-run shot, in the 9-1 victory over Boston.

With the teams tied at 1 Sunday night, Baldelli singled on an 0-2 pitch, driving in Willy Aybar, who doubled to start the fifth inning.

Baldelli wasn't the only part-time contributor. Pitcher David Price made the save of the game in the eighth. With the bases loaded and the Red Sox threatening to the take the lead, Price struck out J.D. Drew on four pitches to end the inning.

"I threw him two sliders for strikes," Price said. "Then I wasted a fastball away. The next pitch was another fastball away, which he check-swung on for the strikeout."

Price, a No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft, was brought along slowly this season and wasn't brought up until September. He earned a victory, his first, in the marathon Game 2 of the ALCS, becoming the fourth pitcher to earn his first major-league win in the postseason.

Price closed Sunday's game by striking out two of the final four Boston batters. When Jed Lowrie grounded out to second for the final out in the 3-1 victory, Rays players mobbed Price on the mound.

"I was on the bottom of the dogpile and I couldn't breathe," Price said. "What an unbelievable feeling."

Reporter Katherine Smith can be reached at (813) 259-7860.

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