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Lapses Costly In Rays' Defeat

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 6, 2008

Updated: 09/06/2008 12:33 am

TORONTO - The underlying theme in Joe Maddon's messages to his team back when winning was still a novelty rarely wavered.

He wanted to see his players go all-out and maintain their focus from the first pitch through the last, knowing that just one slip-up down the stretch could cost them everything they had worked so hard to achieve.

Friday night's 6-4 loss to the Blue Jays was one of those games. Though the Rays had a chance to win it up until Carlos Pena's final mighty cut missed B.J. Ryan's full-count fastball, a handful of poorly timed lapses left them wanting.

"We played well," Maddon said. "We just hung a couple pitches and didn't execute one play, and therein lies the difference in games. If it happens in April or May, maybe you're not scrutinizing it so tightly, but this time of year you're going to."

Thus the spotlight fell on two wheelhouse offerings Alex Rios hammered over the left-field fence at Rogers Centre - a curveball from Andy Sonnanstine in the third inning and a Grant Balfour slider in the eighth - that accounted for three runs. And on a bunt Akinori Iwamura couldn't get down in the seventh inning, costing the Rays a chance to capitalize on a late surge against Roy Halladay and tie the game.

Iwamura's failure was especially galling, because he had been in essentially the same situation three weeks earlier in Oakland and couldn't get the job done in a game the Rays eventually lost 2-1.

It happened in the seventh, Halladay's final inning, when Dioner Navarro turned in a one-out single and departed for pinch-runner Fernando Perez. Gabe Gross then cued a double the other way down the left-field line to move both of them into scoring position, and an infield hit by Jason Bartlett scored Perez.

Runners were on the corners with one out for Iwamura, and he put down a bunt directly in front of the plate rather than down the first-base line as he had intended. Gross was caught halfway down the line in no-man's land, and the Blue Jays easily disposed of him in a quick rundown. Tampa Bay still had a chance after that, but Halladay froze B.J. Upton on a called third strike for the second consecutive at-bat to preserve the lead at 4-3 as he handed it over to the bullpen.

"It was wide open," Maddon said of the bunt. "We just didn't get it done."
Iwamura acknowledged the error but didn't have much else to add.

"I have nothing to say about it. I did the same thing in Oakland," he said through an interpreter. "I accept that I made a mistake, but we've got a game today, too, so I've got to keep my head up."

It was an unfortunate twist for Iwamura, who earlier had sparked a rare early opening against Halladay. Iwamura reached on an error by Blue Jays second baseman Joe Inglett to open the game - an unexpected occurrence after Toronto had gone a franchise-record 15 consecutive games without an error - and the Rays were able to capitalize with some hard-hit fly balls that followed.

Upton's double down the line in right put two runners in scoring position, and both of them came in on consecutive sacrifice flies to right by Pena and Cliff Floyd. Both runs were unearned, but they were good for a lead on Halladay, and those don't come very often.

This one didn't last long. Toronto rapped out four straight hits to open the second inning, capped by a Lyle Overbay double that glanced off a sliding Upton in shallow center field and gave the Blue Jays a 3-2 lead. Rios' solo shot in the third made it 4-2, and momentum was officially gone for the visitors.

"I know coming out of the gates with those two runs that they're pretty precious," Sonnanstine said. "I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't go back out there and put another zero up."

Sonnanstine settled in from there and kept Toronto in check, as did J.P. Howell in a perfect seventh inning. But Rios followed a John McDonald double off Balfour in the eighth by hitting the right-hander's next pitch over the wall to make it 6-3.

The Rays got one back in the ninth against Ryan, but Pena struck out with runners on the corners and Tampa Bay had a setback worth chewing on for a while.

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

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