Rays Run Into Trouble In Loss

ST. LOUIS - As Rays manager Joe Maddon dissected his team's 9-8 loss Saturday, he didn't even bother to mention the walk-off home run by Ryan Ludwick that put the Cardinals over the top.

That wind-aided, 10th-inning drive to center field off Dan Wheeler provided the final margin, but Maddon was steamed the Rays didn't put the game away before that.

On a day in which their long-slumbering bats came alive for a season-high 18 hits, the Rays squandered numerous opportunities by running into outs. In an unsightly throwback to the Rays' ways of old, Tampa Bay made the final out in four different innings on the bases rather than at the plate.

"We made up for the mental mistakes that we have not been making all in one day," Maddon said. "That was truly remarkable."

It started early, truncating promising first and second innings in which the Rays took leads that might have been larger if not for the miscues.

Evan Longoria was the first culprit, getting picked off first base by Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina to end the first after he had singled home B.J. Upton with the game's first run. Still on his knees, Longoria slammed his batting helmet into the dirt with both hands, the first sign of frustration in what would become a long day for the Rays.

Carl Crawford was up next, breaking too soon on a steal attempt in the second inning with Akinori Iwamura on third, Upton at the plate and the Rays up 3-2 after scoring twice earlier in the frame. Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright caught him to start an inning-ending rundown.

In the eighth, Upton attempted to move from second to third on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Longoria but was hung up in a rundown and tagged for the final out of the inning. Finally, in the ninth, Molina nailed Gabe Gross trying to steal second for the third out a moment after Jason Bartlett swung through a third strike.

"We struggled today on the base paths. We were real sloppy," Crawford said. "We were just trying to be too aggressive, I think. That's how we play, but today it kind of bit us."

There were other mistakes, including Gross losing track of how many outs there were and failing to score from second (he eventually came in on a Crawford hit), a missed sign, and J.P. Howell serving up a homer to Albert Pujols on a 3-0 pitch in the sixth.

The Rays' coaches addressed each mistake with the player responsible after the game, Maddon said, but that didn't temper the frustration in the clubhouse.

"Joe preached it to us in spring training - the little things are going to win us games," Upton said. "Those little things hurt us today."

If not for those issues, the Rays might have won the game outright. As it was, they were left to take solace in their comeback from a 7-3 deficit to force extra innings. Starter Matt Garza left that hole when he departed with one out in the fifth, but the Rays immediately embarked on a reclamation project.

Pinch-hitter Cliff Floyd doubled in a run in the sixth, and Carlos Pena celebrated his 30th birthday with a three-run homer to center in the seventh. Pena's homer cut the Cardinals' lead to 8-7, and the Rays tied it on Longoria's sacrifice fly in the eighth.

Al Reyes and Trever Miller laid down three scoreless innings in the meantime to keep the Rays going, and there were no signs of distress until Ludwick hit the first pitch he saw from Wheeler with one out in the 10th. It was a slider that caught too much of the plate, Wheeler acknowledged, though no one seemed to believe the ball would clear the fence when it came off the bat.

There wasn't much the Rays could do about that one, but they had numerous other chances to change the course of the game.

"We've been addressing that all along, and you get to the point where you feel like they're going away, and they had been, but it bit us today pretty good," Maddon said. "It serves as a reminder we're not a finished product yet."