Longoria Taking Road Trip But Still Isn't Ready To Go

All-Star 3B Evan Longoria will accompany the Rays to Toronto, Boston and New York starting today, but his return from a fractured right wrist still isn't imminent.

Despite consecutive losses to the Yankees on Tuesday and Wednesday in which substitute 3B Willy Aybar wasn't as sharp defensively, Manager Joe Maddon said there's no heightened sense of urgency for getting Longoria back.

"We've had that sense of urgency from the moment he went down," Maddon said.

Longoria, who is batting .278 with 22 home runs and has a .971 fielding percentage, has been on the disabled list since Aug. 11. The Rays had targeted early this week for his return, but Longoria has continued to experience "nagging pain" in the wrist.

Although he has been throwing and running each day, Longoria has to back off of taking swings with a light broomstick. He's supposed to start swinging again Saturday but doesn't have a timetable for hitting live pitching.

"I'm fine on defense," Longoria said. "I mean, my wrist feels good throwing the ball at every angle. It's just the weight of the bat and the concussion of the ball off the bat is the problem."

The Rays are 61-41 with Longoria at third and 20-12 with Aybar at the spot. Aybar made a brilliant defensive play in the third inning of Thursday's game, diving to stab a grounder from Derek Jeter and then getting up and throwing him out.

NO EXTRA STRAIN: With Maddon's approval, CF B.J. Upton has been skipping batting practice to save his injured left (non-throwing) shoulder.

"I think he's doing better by not swinging as often," Maddon said.

Upton has been playing with a torn labrum, which may explain why his power numbers are down substantially. After ranking ninth in the AL last year in slugging percentage (.509) and at-bats per home runs (19.8), Upton is slugging at .397 with eight home runs.

Maddon noted that Upton - batting .272 with 33 doubles and a team-leading 89 walks - isn't driving the ball as much.

"He doesn't get his bottom half involved all the time ... but he did that last year, also," Maddon said. "When he gets his bottom half involved, you really see the ball explode off his bat. I don't know if that's partly the function of his shoulder."

"When you see the foul balls to the right, it looks like he's standing on a tripod, and the ball shoots off to the right side. But when he gets the bottom half involvement, the ball jumps."

YANKEES INJURY: In a late switch, Brett Gardner started in place of hot-hitting RF Bobby Abreu, who suffered a jammed left wrist on a ninth-inning stolen base Wednesday. Gardner played center, Johnny Damon was in left and Xavier Nady was in right.

Abreu, batting .359 since July 13, went 2-for-4 with two runs, a double and two stolen bases in New York's 8-4 victory Wednesday.

DURHAM CRUSHED: Triple-A Durham was smoked by Louisville 19-3 in the International League playoffs Thursday, evening the best-of-five series 1-1.

Pitchers Mitchell Talbot (0-1) and Chris Mason were scorched for 17 runs on 18 hits in 32/3 innings. Somehow, Talbot got five strikeouts in two innings.

Durham won the first game of the series 3-0 behind five scoreless innings by Rays top prospect David Price.

RAYS BITS: After averaging only 13,398 in attendance for a three-game weekday series against Toronto last week, the Rays drew crowds of 21,269 (Tuesday), 25,215 (Wednesday) and 26,080 (Thursday) for the Yankees series. The majority pulled for the home team. ... The Rays were bidding for their 13th shutout of the year Thursday before Jason Hammel surrendered five runs in the ninth inning in Tampa Bay's 7-5 victory. ... Despite a couple of ugly losses in the nine-game, 10-day homestand, the Rays went 6-3. ... The Rays still own a club-record 30 series wins, most in the majors.

Tony Fabrizio