Rays fall to Yankees after bullpen mix-up

Joe Maddon walked to the mound in the bottom of the sixth inning Monday with Yankees left-hander Curtis Granderson at the plate and called for left-handed reliever Randy Choate.

Maddon waited on the Yankee Stadium mound for Choate and, when the pitcher finally arrived, handed the ball to Choate.

Except it wasn't Choate.

It was right-hander Grant Balfour.

Surprised?

Ya think?

"I went out there, and I was on the mound and all of a sudden I'm giving the ball to the pitcher, and it didn't look like Randy Choate," Maddon said.

The mix-up, for which Maddon took complete responsibility, proved to be the biggest moment of the night after Balfour served up a three-run homer to Granderson for the decisive runs in the Yankees 8-6 win against the Rays during the first game of this four-game series.

The loss dropped the Rays 1 1/2 games behind the first place Yankees and a half-game behind the AL Central-leading Twins in the race for the best record in baseball. For the first time since July 4, the Rays don't have either the best or second-best record in the major leagues.

The good news? The Red Sox lost to the Orioles, which means the Rays still own a 6 1/2-game lead over the Red Sox in the Wild Card standings. Boston's loss reduced the Rays magic number of clinching a postseason spot to seven.

The bad news? Matt Garza came up flat again.

Garza managed to pitch past the fifth inning, something he didn't do in either of his previous two starts, but left with no one out on the sixth after allowing a run on three consecutive singles.

He was charged with seven runs, though five were earned and two trotted home on Granderson's blast off Balfour that struck the top of the right field foul pole.

Garza, 14-9, is 0-2 with a 10.93 ERA and a no-decision in his past three starts.

Garza said after being roughed up in Boston earlier this month he was fighting through "September soreness," something Maddon wrote off as the pitcher not quite being able to put into words how his body feels at this point of the season.

When asked after Monday's game if he was injured, Garza said: "Nah, just, you know, nicks and bruises here and there, but nothing dramatic, nothing huge to put a halt on this train from going. It's just wear and tear of the season, but I'm going to keep going, keep grinding it out."

Maddon, as he has all month with each of his starters, maintains that Garza is healthy.

"I see him trying to do too much in certain situations as opposed to permitting his stuff to work," Maddon said. "He pitched almost exclusively with his fastball. ... Overall, did not pitch with that normally well-located fastball ... Overall, his pitch-making ability hasn't been the same. But physically, he's fine."

Yet, with a chance to pitch the Rays back into first place, Garza came up short.

With Francisco Cervelli on first base and two out in the third inning, Granderson hit his first home run of the night, a long drive off Garza that landed in the Yankees bullpen in right-center field.

The Yankees added two more in the fifth to take a 4-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by Alex Rodriguez and a bases-loaded walk to Nick Swisher. The damage could have been a lot worse since Garza faced Rodriguez and Swisher with the bases-loaded.

The Rays, as is their habit this season, squeezed four runs out of a sixth-inning rally that included three walks, a catcher's interference, a double play, and four singles, three of them soft.

Carl Crawford reached for the fifth time this season on catcher's interference with the bases-loaded, a play that scored Jason Bartlett with the Rays first run. John Jaso, who walked, scored when Evan Longoria grounded into double play with the bases-loaded. Dan Johnson kept the rally alive with a bloop RBI single to center. Matt Joyce walked and Carlos Peña was safe of a squibber up the first base line to reload the bases.

B.J. Upton drew a walk to force in the fourth run of the inning.

Garza returned for the sixth and allowed singles to all three batters he faced. The last, by Derek Jeter, drove in a run to make it 5-4 Yankees.

"I had better stuff, didn't really use it as much as I should," Garza said. "I got ground balls, but didn't really put myself in some holes. I think the only hole I put myself in was when I walked Swisher to reload the bases, but other than that, I was able to get out of that."

At some point that inning, Maddon told pitching coach Jim Hickey to get both Choate and Balfour up in the bullpen. For some reason, only Balfour was told to start throwing.

"That was a situation that was absolutely my fault, because I talked to Hick about getting up Choate earlier, but it was my fault," Maddon said. "I really mis-communicated with him. Totally my fault in regards to that set-up."

Such was Maddon's confusion that he walked up to second base umpire Adrian Johnson and told him he called for the wrong reliever. It was then Maddon realized Johnson signaled for the only pitcher warming up.

"That was my fault," Maddon said. "I totally (messed) up."

Balfour had an inkling the situation called for a left-hander, but also knew the left-hander was sitting down.

"Who else is going to go in? That's not my call. That's not my job," Balfour said. "My job is to go out and pitch, and I was the only one warming up. What else are you going to do?"

Maddon said later the the Balfour-Granderson matchup wasn't all that bad, and Balfour felt he made a good pitch to the left-handed hitter, a fastball up and in.

"He usually doesn't hit that ball," Balfour said.

The ball clanked off the top of the foul pole to give the Yankees an 8-4 lead.

The Rays scored a run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Longoria and one in the ninth off Mariano Rivera when Longoria singled home Zobrist, who had doubled.

The start of the game was delayed by 30 minutes as the Yankees unveiled a large monument in Monument Park for owner George Steinbrenner, who passed away July 13.

Yogi Berra, Don Mattingly, Reggie Jackson, Roy White, Joe Torre and Tino Martinez where among the past Yankees to attend the occasion. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and baseball commissioner Bud Selig were also on hand.

From the outset, the game appeared to be following the script set last week when the teams played three nail-biting, one-run affairs that saw the division lead change hands with the final out.

Yankee rookie Ivan Nova allowed a two-out single to Crawford in the first inning and little else through the next four innings as he took a one-hitter into the sixth inning.

If anything concerned Maddon Monday - the bullpen snafu, Garza's poor outing - it was the Rays lack of early offense.

Maddon called it "frustrating."

"The offense, if we could just take advantage earlier in the game," Maddon said. "We do so well late in the game, we're really a good latter part of the game team, if we could just get a little more involved early. Like we talked at the beginning of the season getting off to a good start can really impact our season, getting off to a good start in the game, getting on top, the other guys might come back but you've built this little momentum and cushion, so we need to do a better job in the first at-bats, first time through the lineup kind of thing, would really benefit us, because we're really good late, which is a wonderful attribute. I'm not complaining about it. I would like to get out of the chute a little better."

NOTEWORTHY

Garza has not allowed a run in the first inning in his past 16 starts, which is the longest streak in the majors, according to the Elias Sports Bureau ... Longoria's two RBIs gives him 101 for the season, making him the fourth Ray to drive in 100 runs in consecutive years. He joins Fred McGriff (1999-2000), Aubrey Huff (2003-2004) and Peña (2007, 2008, 2009) ... Crawford tied his career-high with his 81st RBI of the season. Crawford is batting .333 since being moved to third in the batting order on Aug. 9 ... Mike Ekstrom tossed a scoreless inning to increase his streak of scoreless innings to eight ... Zobrist's ninth inning double off Rivera was the Rays only extra-base hit ... Lance Cormier, who allowed one hit in his previous seven outings, allowed two in his one inning Monday.