Longoria departs after family death

The Rays played Wednesday's series finale against the Yankees without their hottest hitter, 3B Evan Longoria, who traveled home to California because of a death in his family.

Longoria also will miss tonight's opener of a four-game series with the White Sox but is expected back Friday. Entering Wednesday, he led the majors in home runs with five and was batting .441 with 12 RBIs.

Manager Joe Maddon said Longoria knew he would have to leave the club "for a couple of days now" but offered no other details. Maddon said the 2008 AL Rookie of the Year wanted to keep the matter private.

Willy Aybar started at third and went 0-for-4 in the Rays' 4-3 loss, and DH Pat Burrell moved up from fifth to third in the order.

The Yankees were missing two key players as well. Already without 3B Alex Rodriguez for the series, they played without RF Xavier Nady on Wednesday. Nady sustained a potentially serious right elbow injury Tuesday night and will be placed on the DL, Manager Joe Girardi said.

Gold for Pena

Joined by his wife, Pamela, and 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, 1B Carlos Pena picked up his 2008 Gold Glove Award in a pregame ceremony. He added to the memory by hitting a solo home run off Andy Pettitte in the fourth inning.

Pena said that standing on the field before the ceremony, he didn't even want to look at the award because "I knew it was going to be awesome."

"It's a beautiful trophy, first of all, but what it represents means the world to me," he said. "I always take pride in my defense - work really hard at it - and to get recognized for it, I'm very grateful."

Pena committed only two errors in 1,099 chances last year.

Odd sight

The Yankees made Tropicana Field their personal workout facility when, two hours before the scheduled first pitch, struggling pitcher Chien-Ming Wang pitched to batters from the game mound.

Girardi said he asked for and received permission from the Rays' groundskeeper.

"Yes, we have to ask them because we have to give them time to get the mound ready for the game," he said. "And they were great about it."

The Rays lit up Wang for eight runs in one-plus inning in a 15-5 victory Monday night.

Honoring Robinson

Along with the rest of MLB, the Rays and Yankees recognized Jackie Robinson by having all players wear Robinson's No. 42. Additionally, Rays hitting coach Steve Henderson and first-base coach George Hendrick each threw out a ceremonial first pitch.

Wednesday marked the 62nd anniversary of the day Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Notable

Fans attending Saturday night's game will get replica AL championship trophies, and the first 10,000 fans Sunday can pick up championship pennants. ... The start of Wednesday's game was delayed 10 minutes while power was restored to a bank of lights.

Tony Fabrizio