Tense day turns out okay

RAYS 5, BLUE JAYS 4 (10): Injury to Wilson Alvarez appears minor, and Tampa Bay recovers from two blown leads.

By BRUCE LOWITT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 15, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- For an instant it looked like another setback, Wilson Alvarez kneeling in pain, Rays manager Hal McRae heading to the mound.

As it turned out, it wasn't all that bad -- not Alvarez's back, and not Sunday's game, either. The Rays, despite twice giving away the lead, rode fundamentals to a 10-inning, 5-4 win over Toronto to end a three-game tailspin in which their starting pitching deserted them.

Ben Grieve's opposite-field single with the bases loaded delivered the winning run, but it was a Jason Tyner two-run single in the seventh, a dazzling play by rookie second baseman Felix Escalona and some strong relief pitching that gave the Rays the chance to win.

"A good game to win after dropping the first two," McRae said. "We played much better, pitched much better. Alvarez did a good job. Clutch hitting. Fundamental baseball."

The Rays head to Detroit, which they swept in a season-opening three-game series. The Tigers remain winless after 11 games.

Alvarez, after missing all of the 2000-01 seasons following left shoulder surgery, breezed through the Blue Jays order for 52/3 innings, allowing two hits. The only blemish was Raul Mondesi's home run to open the fourth. Alvarez even kept Carlos Delgado in check with a strikeout, one of seven, and a fly ball. Delgado had 4 hits, 5 walks, 2 homers and 5 RBIs in the first two games of the series.

But when Alvarez overthrew a 2-and-2 pitch to Delgado with two outs in the sixth and the Rays leading 2-1, the left-hander winced, grabbed his right side and knelt in pain. His face was an amalgam of pain, anger and frustration when McRae and trainer Jamie Reed arrived.

It turned out to be a strained right rib cage, and the pain quickly subsided. "It scared me more than it hurt," Alvarez said. "I wanted to finish the inning but (McRae) said, 'Hey, this is your last hitter anyway so I'm taking you out.' I was like, 'Man, let me try, let me throw a couple (of warmup pitches) here.' "

Delgado was 0-for-14 against Alvarez going into that at-bat. "When he hits, he hits it to somebody," Alvarez said, shrugging. "I really don't know what it is."

Besides, McRae wasn't listening. "He was only going to pitch six (innings). Coming off two years of not pitching and a kind of shaky outing in New York (3 runs, 5 hits, 4 walks in 41/3 innings), I'd have taken the six. I was hoping for six. ... You can't leave him out there. He had a shoulder injury and you always fear that he'll favor something and reinjure something."

Jesus Colome, whose previous appearance was the eight-run third of an inning in Baltimore, took over. He missed with his first pitch to put Delgado on first and, two pitches later, served one up that Jose Cruz planted in the rightfield stands for a 3-2 Blue Jays lead.

The Rays regained it in the seventh when Tyner slapped a Roy Halladay pitch into centerfield for two of his three RBIs, but Toronto tied it, and very nearly took the lead, in the eighth.

Shannon Stewart singled and stole second. After Colome struck out the next two, McRae ordered that Delgado be walked intentionally. "No way Delgado was going to do any damage with that at-bat," he said. "That wasn't going to happen."

So Cruz did it with a double to right-centerfield. Grieve failed to backhand it and Stewart scored, but Delgado stopped running between second and third. "I thought he caught the ball for sure," Delgado said. "I looked up and it bounced. It's just one of those plays."

Esteban Yan replaced Doug Creek and Vernon Wells hit a hard grounder between first and second. Escalona made a sprawling, diving stop, scrambled to his knees and threw to first, where Steve Cox short-hopped the ball with a backhanded flourish for the third out. "His range on that ball may have saved the game," McRae said of Escalona's play.

Escalona nearly won the game leading off the 10th against Pasqual Coco when a drive to left fell about 3 feet short of going over the railing. Stewart made a leaping catch at the wall.

One out later Randy Winn doubled and Cox was walked intentionally to get to designated hitter Greg Vaughn, batting .140 with 15 strikeouts, second-most on the Rays. But Coco walked him to load the bases, and Grieve slapped his winning hit.