Signs of 2008 Rays appearing

As the afternoon wore on Thursday at the Trop, zeroes were lining up on the Tampa Bay Rays' side of the scoreboard like jets stacked up awaiting takeoff. Frustration doesn't begin to describe what was happening, and some of those bad old feelings couldn't help but creep in.

Or, as Bruce Springsteen - the favorite singer of Rays manager Joe Maddon - might have put it:

"We're the same sad story, that's a fact.

"One step up and two steps back."

But there have been a few signs lately that things might be coming together in ways that resemble the magic season of a year ago, so show a little faith - there was magic in the night. That was particularly true in the bottom of the eighth inning, when B.J. Upton hit a ball 434 feet into the left-field seats for a two-run homer, and a few minutes later the Rays had a 3-2 victory against Kansas City and a three-game series sweep.

They had more than just that, though.

"I really felt we were going to win that game somehow," Maddon said. "I just wasn't sure how."

That, sports fans, is exactly what they did throughout the summer of 2008. You weren't sure how they'd do it, but you were generally sure that somehow they'd get it done.

That feeling has been missing for most of the first two months of this season, when the Rays would play well for a few days but then take, as the song goes, those two steps back - well, except at Cleveland, where they took four. The Rays are back at .500 after Thursday's win, though, and have another chance to make a move in the American League East.

You don't want to put too much emphasis on a small sampling of season, but the Rays really needed something like this. They won five of six games on this homestand at a time when the season was crumbling around them.

There was the meltdown at Cleveland. They lost the middle of their infield in the previous series in Miami - Akinori Iwamura for the season, and Jason Bartlett to the disabled list. Tuesday night here against the Royals, Evan Longoria grabbed his hamstring and hasn't played since.

You survive runs like that by playing to your strengths - pitching and depth. Rays pitchers combined for a 1.60 ERA in these six home games, including eight gritty innings Thursday by James Shields. Jeff Niemann was sensational in a two-hit shutout Wednesday, and Andy Sonnanstine showed signs of snapping out of his funk in the series opener.

And spare parts like Ben Zobrist, Willy Aybar and Joe Dillon helped plug the leaks left behind by Iwamura and Bartlett. That's the way it happened last year, when different heroes kept stepping up when starters got hurt.

"I like to go little by little," first baseman Carlos Penã said. "I know there is something positive happening and we welcome that, but we try not to get too far ahead of ourselves. We have this relaxed positive expectation, and that's the way we want to keep it."

Upton is on an eight-game hitting streak - including 9-for-20 on the homestand - and raised his batting average 19 points in that span to .218.

Forget the figure filberts, though. Numbers tell only part of the story. It's still about finding a way to win, even when you strand eight base runners in the first four innings and 11 overall, as they did in this game. Or when you go 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position and still come out on top. That's the formula they followed to a league championship in 2008.

They're not all the way back, of course. They'll still greet this morning in fourth place in the division, and they'll still have to make do while some key players heal.

We've been seeking evidence that the Rays, as the man once said, are who we thought they were. As Upton touched home plate after his trip around the bases, we seemed to have at least a little proof.