Rays pull off biggest comeback in team history to top Jays

Dale Thayer had just completed his warm-up tosses before the seventh inning when Joe Maddon came to the mound to make a pitching change. His team had just scored four times and he wanted Grant Balfour to take the ball for the bottom half.

As Maddon, the Rays' infielders and catcher Dioner Navarro waited, the manager delivered his message.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "We're going to win this game."

The notion would have seemed absurd even three outs earlier, when the Rays began the seventh trailing the Blue Jays by eight runs. But considering what already had transpired on the Rays' wild post-All-Star-break road trip, they figured, why not?

"You just keep playing the game," said Ben Zobrist.

So Tampa Bay's hitters kept grinding and had tied the game by the end of regulation, then finished the job in the 12th with a run against former teammate Shawn Camp and a gut-churning save by Joe Nelson.

It finished Tampa Bay 10, Toronto 9 after the Rays had trailed 8-0 through four and 9-1 through six.

The eight-run deficit was the largest ever overcome by a Rays team, topping their rally from a 7-0 hole against the Indians on May 15. The stakes seem higher now, with the Rays set to play their 99th game of the season today. As much as they might have preferred to just pack it in, they can't afford to be so cavalier. So, they fought.

"It's easy to give [at-bats] away when you're down 8-0 after four innings and just say let's get out of here early and go get dinner," Nelson said. "I was waiting for Joe to start pulling guys to give them some rest."

Instead, Maddon kept encouraging his team, and his hitters kept doing the right thing. They had gathered Friday afternoon for a brief chat with hitting coach Steve Henderson, and his main point of emphasis was working quality at-bats.

The application of that principle began in the sixth, when B.J. Upton singled home the Rays' first run. It wasn't much, considering David Price had allowed two Toronto runs in each of the first three innings before heading for the clubhouse and Lance Cormier continued the pattern in the fourth.

It wasn't until the seventh that the Rays got Toronto's attention. Starter Brian Tallet, who had faced only two batters over the minimum through six, loaded the bases with Carlos Peña coming to the plate. Peña hammered one off the wall in right for a three-run triple and a Willy Aybar groundout brought him home to make it 9-5.

The Rays' bullpen went into lockdown mode, and Pat Burrell's two-out, two-run single in the eighth cut the remaining gap in half. Scott Downs came on for the ninth, and for the second consecutive evening the Rays got to him. Peña started it off with a towering opposite-field home run against the lefty, and after Gabe Kapler grounded out Aybar went over the wall in center to tie the game.

It stayed that way until the 12th, when the Rays put two men on against Camp with two out. Bartlett was looking for a slider and got one on the first pitch, which he sent streaking toward the left-field corner. The ball landed squarely on the foul line and Zobrist scored easily from second.

"We've hit several balls recently just foul or somebody's catching it over the wall," Maddon said. "It was nice to have one hit a line."

All the Rays needed were three outs, but they didn't come easily. Nelson, the seventh and final reliever in the Rays' bullpen, walked the bases loaded with one out. James Shields would have been next to pitch, but Nelson knew it was in his hands.

He got a generous called third strike on Aaron Hill, then induced a groundout from Adam Lind to end it.

"Never a doubt," Nelson said with a smile.