Never-Say-Die Rays Show Plenty Of Heart

ST. PETERSBURG - Leave it to this team, this amazing team, to make a poster boy - and victory - out of thin air.

In the bottom of the 10th inning at Tropicana Field late Sunday afternoon, seldom-used but essential Rays backup catcher Shawn Riggans could hardly breathe air, thick or thin.

He'd been nailed by Detroit Tigers closer Fernando Rodney - a mid-90s fastball to the right side of his chest. Riggans went down. It was scary. Suddenly, blowing a comeback win and being down 5-4 wasn't important. Well, maybe it still was, a little.

Rays manager Joe Maddon, trainers and a team doctor raced to the stricken Riggans as he gulped. They made Riggans stay down when he first tried to get up.

"I'm telling you, man, what was it, 96, 97 in the heart?" Maddon said. "God bless, that's no good."

"You could hear the percussion on his chest when it hit. I was hoping it wasn't his heart," Rays reliever Trever Miller said.

Riggans got back up.

It wasn't his heart.

It's never this team's heart.

They Get Back Up

Riggans, who only batted because shortstop Jason Bartlett was hit on the finger seconds earlier while trying to bunt, trotted to first, pushing Willy Aybar to second.

"That wasn't the best way to get the runner over, but it worked out, didn't it?" Riggans said.

Aybar scored the tying run on a Carl Crawford single. And of course Riggans scored the winning run on, just as naturally, a bases-loaded walk-off walk by Carlos Pena for an inexplicable 6-5 victory.

Knock them down.

They get back up.

After six lifeless innings, the Rays crammed their whole ball season into four innings - the ups, the downs and the get back up agains.

They won this game twice.

B.J. Upton's two-run homer in the eighth, his first homer in 26 days, gave them a 5-4 lead.

They lost this game once.

Troy Percival gave up consecutive leadoff home runs in the ninth and 10th innings, to Curtis Granderson and Miguel Cabrera.

Then the Rays won, for good, on just one hit, three walks, a sacrifice bunt, a hit by pitch and, well, does it really matter at this point?

"It's amazing how these guys don't quit," Percival said.

When the fairy dust cleared, the Tigers had been swept, the winning streak was five and the AL East lead remained at three games against the Red Sox and 51/2 against the Yankees, who both won. A thoroughly imaginative way to hold serve, but it figures with these guys.

It figures that this win, of all wins, gave the Rays 66 for the season, as many as they had all last season. It figures that Miller of all people - and we mean all people - got the decision, snapping a major-league record streak of 121 appearances without one, dating to 2006.

"Gas cost 2 dollars and 25 cents a gallon," Miller said.

This team's tank never runs dry.

Scoreboard Watching

During the game, they scanned the out-of-town scoreboard for Red Sox and Yankees news.

"To deny it is to be in denial," Maddon said.

"Everywhere you look, there are scoreboards in your face," Miller said. "You wouldn't be human if you didn't look."

So they looked.

So they won.

"I just loved the fact that we did not give up," Maddon said. "When we gave up the lead, we did not cave in."

And that goes for Shawn Riggans' chest.

"This team battles," Riggans said.

These hearts keep beating.