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Red Sox Win 13-5, Pull Into Dead Heat With Rays

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Home plate umpire Jerry Meals walks away from Tampa Bay pitcher Scott Kazmir after giving Kazmir a warning for hitting Boston's Jason Varitek with a pitch in the second inning.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 16, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - In the aftermath of every comeback and near-comeback by the Rays this season, a proud clubhouse has trumpeted the team's insistence on never giving up until the final out is recorded.

That pretense went out the window for good reason at the halfway point of Monday's game, which at that juncture already qualified as Tampa Bay's most abysmal effort of the season. One by one, Joe Maddon began pulling his starters in the bottom of the fifth inning, and all but three Rays on the original lineup card had been replaced by the time Tampa Bay took the field for the top of the sixth.

But the man who bore the bulk of the responsibility for the 13-5 beating delivered by the Red Sox was gone long before that.

The worst start of Scott Kazmir's career dropped the Rays into a virtual tie for first place with Boston, though Tampa Bay remained percentage points ahead with one fewer loss. But that was little consolation after the Red Sox won their first game at Tropicana Field this season by peppering the outfield seats - and one catwalk - with six home runs.

"They hit the ball really well, they hit it far," Maddon said. "They jumped us."

Kazmir (11-7) surrendered four longballs in his three-plus innings of misery. Completely out of whack from the very first pitch, which sailed wide of Coco Crisp and went to the backstop, Kazmir walked the first two Boston hitters on eight pitches before David Ortiz pounded his 11th offering out to right. Two batters later, Mike Lowell homered to left and the Rays trailed 4-0 in the first inning for the second consecutive game.

The next two innings brought a respite for Kazmir and the Rays, but the suspense departed in the fourth. Jason Bay mauled the first pitch of the inning, lodging it in the C-ring catwalk high above center field for a homer, and Jason Varitek followed a walk to Jed Lowrie with a homer of his own. An infield single by Jacoby Ellsbury, who beat a sluggish Kazmir to the bag, and a double by Crisp ended Kazmir's day.

A subsequent single and groundout with Mitch Talbot on the mound brought home the last two runners on Kazmir's ledger and tagged the lefty for nine runs in three innings. That tied a career worst set at Pittsburgh on June 11, 2005 - an 18-2 Rays loss. Of course, that pounding hurt nothing but Kazmir's pride.

The stakes were far higher Monday, and Kazmir seemed as mystified as his manager and everyone else after his ERA shot from 2.99 to 3.50. He said his body felt "weak" and wasn't responding as it should have, as if he had jet lag.

"I mean, what else could go wrong in that game?" Kazmir said. "I just don't want to have any of those experiences ever again."

Once Kazmir departed, Talbot served up two more homers - to Kevin Youkilis and Ellsbury - as the Red Sox matched the record for the most longballs by a Rays opponent at Tropicana Field.

The Rays' only runs came on homers, a solo shot by Akinori Iwamura and two-run drives by substitutes Justin Ruggiano and Dan Johnson after the mid-game purge Maddon called an "easy" decision.

"Sometimes you'd rather have that group of reserves expend the energy to try to get you back into a game that's that lopsided," the manager said.

But there was no getting back in this one. The postgame focus was squarely on getting over it, and the consensus seemed to be it shouldn't be a problem.

"A game like this, it's not even 30 minutes - it's five minutes and it's gone," said Maddon. "It's two minutes."

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

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