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Champagne Still Chillin'

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By MARC LANCASTER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2008

DETROIT - The line of blue, waist-high coolers on wheels lined up in the corridor off the visitors' clubhouse told the tale Thursday afternoon.

There in the bins sat the bottles of champagne and cans of beer intended for the Rays' division title celebration. On ice.

A rough day for Scott Kazmir and the Rays' pitching staff saw to it that the goodies remained untouched for another day, as the Tigers pounded out five home runs and held off the obligatory Tampa Bay comeback for a 7-5 victory at Comerica Park.

The Rays still had a chance to clinch the AL East in absentia with a Boston loss against Cleveland later in the evening, but the Red Sox prevailed 6-1 to extend the race at least one more day.

Tampa Bay would prefer to pop the corks of its own volition anyway, so waiting to give it another shot tonight wasn't considered a terrible thing. But the Rays certainly couldn't argue they deserved to clinch Thursday.

Kazmir was as bad this time as he had been good Saturday, when his six shutout innings against the Twins locked up a playoff spot for the Rays. In fact, the lefty's outing was reminiscent of the start he made before that one, in which the Red Sox lit him up with four homers.

He matched that career-worst showing Thursday, but this one wasn't as easy to brush off as the work of good hitters taking advantage of a pitcher's off day. Long balls by Ramon Santiago (twice), Mike Hessman and Dusty Ryan aren't as easily dismissed as those by David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay.

Rays manager Joe Maddon said he wasn't quite sure what had happened to Kazmir, noting that two of the homers came on 0-2 counts - uncharacteristic mistakes for the lefty. But Kazmir admitted afterward he had fallen back into a familiar trap, worrying constantly about his mechanics while on the mound rather than just rearing back and firing.

"It felt like I just wasn't finishing pitches," he said. "You would see change-ups that would be high and outside and sliders that were just kind of hanging up there."

The result was a 4-1 deficit by the time Kazmir turned it over to Jason Hammel to start the sixth inning. Not what Kazmir needed in his final tune-up before his first career playoff start, and certainly not what the worn-out Rays needed after a short night of sleep following their flight from Baltimore.

"I'm very disappointed," Kazmir said. "It would have been great for us to go ahead and clinch it and get it done with and look forward to the postseason. I just didn't get the job done."

Not that the Rays were done, of course. They had rallied from larger deficits to win the previous two games, and they started inching back in a positive direction in the seventh when Evan Longoria pulled his 27th homer of the season down the left-field line to make it 4-2.

But Hammel gave it right back. After escaping a self-created mess unscathed in the sixth, the right-hander was charged with a couple of runs in the seventh, one of which scored on a sacrifice fly after Chad Bradford was summoned to take over. The ground-ball specialist didn't help matters, either, serving up a homer to Curtis Granderson to make it 7-2.

There was brief hope for the Rays the following inning when they finally chased Tigers starter Armando Galarraga from the game with a 424-foot bomb to the deepest part of Comerica Park by Ben Zobrist, his second homer of the afternoon. But that three-run drive proved all the Rays could muster as Fernando Rodney came on to shut them down, striking out Eric Hinske on a 98-mph heater to end it.

Signs of disappointment were minimal following the game, as the Rays know their destiny remains in their hands heading into the weekend.

"We're still in the driver's seat, we've got to remember that," Longoria said. "We've got three games left and it's basically if we don't lose the rest of them, we're going to win the AL East."

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

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