Garza flashes tantalizing potential against Phillies

Matt Garza's dominating performance in the Rays' 7-1 victory against the Phillies on Wednesday night begs the question, why doesn't he do that every time out?

"The answer to that is, he's what, 25?" manager Joe Maddon said. "Eventually, you're going to see that on a real solid, consistent basis.

"I think with Garz, sometimes he just overthinks it a bit. He's got great stuff, and I just think he tinkers a little bit when he needs to be physical. As he gets older and more mature as a pitcher, you're going to see that kind of outing on a more consistent basis."

Surely Garza, who turns 26 in November, has the best goods among the Rays starters. He throws harder than Opening Day starter James Shields, has more polish than young David Price and is less mercurial than Scott Kazmir.

And yet he was 5-5 with a 3.61 ERA and before Wednesday night, and hadn't won in his previous six starts (since May 16).

And yet Garza had, at times, been as good as he was when earning the Most Valuable Player Award in the American League Championship Series last fall (2-0, 1.38).

There was the 4-3 victory at Boston on April 9 when he gave up only four hits and a run in seven innings, and the 13-0 drugging against Boston on April 30 when he permitted only a hit in 7 2/3 innings.

There were stout outings and wins against Baltimore and Cleveland in May as well.

Garza hasn't pitched badly the rest of the time. He was getting only 3.93 runs per game in run support before Wednesday night, which was fourth lowest in the AL. He had allowed fewer than four earned runs in eight of his previous 10 starts.

But in his last six starts, he wasn't been the guy he was Wednesday night.

"I got back to who I am, and that's throwing my heater and saying 'beat me with this,'" Garza said after allowing three hits while matching his season-high with eight innings pitched.

Garza didn't allow a hit until Greg Dobbs led off the fifth with a single, but he got himself into a world of trouble an inning earlier when he walked the first three batters to load the bases.

He was threatening to quickly give away the 2-0 lead Pat Burrell had given the Rays with a two-run homer in the second.

"Hick [pitching coach Jim Hickey] came out and kind of put it to me gently," Garza said. "He said, 'throw the dang fastball in there.' It works, you know.'"

Garza got out of the fourth without giving up a run when he got Jayson Werth to ground to third. Third baseman Evan Longoria went home for one out, and catcher Dioner Navarro through to second for a double play.

Garza then struck out Matt Stairs to end the inning.

"He was very aggressive," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of Garza. "Our biggest shot was in that fourth inning. After that, he was pretty good."

Garza lowered his opponents' average to .210, overtaking ex-Ray Edwin Jackson, who has a .214 average for the Tigers, for first place in the AL.

"He had really good stuff from the side," Maddon said. "Navvy came off [the field] in about the third or fourth inning and told me, 'heads up; he's got really good stuff tonight.'"

Which begs the question: Can he do it next time?