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Rays Can't Find That Winning Feeling

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2008

PHILADELPHIA - It was the kind of game they've won all season.

It was the kind of game that made you believe in their miracle.

And then they lost.

"We win that game 75 percent of the time," Rays reliever J.P. Howell said.

This was the 25 percent.

After a long rain delay, and a longer game, into the pre-dawn, the Rays find themselves behind in this World Series.

They'd made a comeback out of nothing.

And now they had nothing to show for it.

It will take days to describe the bottom of the ninth of Game 3 at Citizens Bank Park. It ended with a Joe Maddon concoction, five infielders and only two outfielders, the old 5-2.

"It looked like they were about to blitz,'' Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard joked.

It ended with a hit barely off the bat of Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz. It traveled about 45 feet, with Rays third baseman Evan Longoria grabbing the bases-loaded dribbler and throwing underhand to the plate, well over catcher Dioner Navarro's head.

The Phillies won 5-4.

It was an impossible play.

Longoria probably should have let it roll foul.

What did he have to lose?

The Rays lost anyway.

It was a ridiculous way to lose.

"It was a weird way to end the game," said Rays right fielder turned fifth infielder Ben Zobrist, who was standing over second when it ended. "It just happened to happen in the World Series."

That wasn't the real weirdness.

There was that Howell hitting Eric Bruntlett to start the ninth.

There was that wild pitch by his replacement, Grant Balfour.

There was Navarro's throwing error when he got the ball back.

There was Bruntlett on third, no outs.

Maddon to the mound.

Two intentional walks.

A fifth infielder.

Ruiz swung.

"You couldn't have taken the ball and rolled it out there any better," Longoria said. They lost just the kind of game that they've won from nowhere all season.

They came from 4-1 down to scratch for three more runs. Scratching is all they're doing this Series.
They've scored their last eight runs with just one base hit. Longoria and Carlos Pena are hitless in the Series. They partly were shut down by Phillies starter Jamie Moyer, who set some kind of record by being the only pitcher to have pitched in the World Series and sign the Declaration of Independence.

They tried to make it happen. Carl Crawford and Navarro drove in runs with grounders in the seventh.

Then B.J. Upton really made it happen. He reached first on an infield hit. With Pena up, he stole second. With Longoria up, he stole third, then came home when Ruiz's throw bounced away toward the Rays dugout.

It was 4-4.

This was just the type of game the Rays have won.

Then they didn't.

Maybe they should have known earlier, in the sixth, when Longoria hit a towering fly down the left field line. It was crushed.

"When Longo hit that ball, we all thought it was gone," Zobrist said. "That's 20 rows deep at the Trop."

It was caught on the warning track.

The wind? The cold?

"It's out anywhere else," Upton said. "The crosswind to right kind of held it up."

"I started jogging to first," Longoria said. "To me, it was only a question of whether it was fair or foul. I was just stunned."

All part of his lost night.

Why, even what seemed like a stroke of luck, well, wasn't.

Balfour's wild pitch to Shane Victorino bounced off the backstop right back to Navarro.

"I thought we might get [Bruntlett] at second for a second," Balfour said.

The ball skipped into center field.

It was that kind of night.

Maddon made it even stranger, pulling Zobrist in from right. He'd played five infielders in Seattle with success, and in Chicago without it.

Then the two intentional walks.

The miracle lover figured the Rays would get out of it.

This season has gone that way.

The dribbler rolled on the wet grass.

"He hits the ball 10 feet," Balfour said. "It was like the perfect bunt."

Longoria charged and grabbed it.

No chance.

Suddenly, the Rays are down 2-1.

Suddenly, they need a win tonight in game 4 or they get Cole Hamels for lunch, breakfast and dinner in Game 5 with their season on the line.

The lines have been drawn.

It took the longest time to draw them, after rain, after the Phillies jumped out, and the Rays came back, after 3 hours and 41 minutes, the lines were drawn. The Phillies danced off the field. The Rays trudged.

It didn't feel anything like the season.

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