Getting close to the O's

ORIOLES 6, RAYS 5: Tampa Bay loses by two runs or fewer for the 10th time in a 15-game skid.

By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 11, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- There aren't many people who can understand what it must be like for the Rays, the frustration of losing again and again. A 6-5 defeat to Baltimore on Friday extended their losing streak to 15 games, the longest in the majors since 1998, when the Orioles lost 21 straight to start the season.

Elrod Hendricks, Baltimore's bullpen coach then and now, knows exactly how they feel. So does Scott McGregor, a starter on the 1988 team who watched Friday from a seat behind the visitors' dugout.

"It was horrible and amazing at the same time," McGregor said. "You try to laugh, you try to relax, you try to work harder. You just kept saying to yourself, 'This just can't keep happening. You've got to win one somehow.' "

"You go through a mental thing, and then it becomes physical," Hendricks said. "You become physically drained because you know you've played as good as you can play and as hard as you can play with no results."

The Rays, who are the third team in the past 25 years to lose 15 straight and the 29th since 1900, felt Friday was another prime example.

Down 2-0, they went up 3-2 on Jason Conti's fourth-inning homer. Behind 6-3 with Ryan Rupe battling to keep it close, they got back in the game with two runs in the seventh, but they failed to convert promising opportunities in the eighth and ninth innings.

"It's very tough," Brent Abernathy said. "Everyone in here is playing their guts out every day, and we just can't get over the hump." The chance was there Friday before about half the paid crowd of 10,635. Ben Grieve and Greg Vaughn walked to open the eighth and moved into scoring position on Toby Hall's bunt. After some managerial maneuvering and an intentional walk to pinch-hitter Russ Johnson, the Rays ended up with what they thought was a favorable matchup: Chris Gomez batting with the bases loaded and one out against left-hander Buddy Groom.

"I liked our chances at that point," manager Hal McRae said. "I thought for sure we'd either take the lead or tie it up."

Gomez got ahead 3-and-0, but Groom battled back to 3-and-2 and forced him to swing at a cutter that was down and in. Gomez, in a 7-for-44 skid, managed only a grounder to third that the Orioles turned into an inning-ending double play.

"He made some tough pitches, but I've got to find a way to do something with them to get at least one run in," Gomez said. "You desperately want to do something positive, but I told myself to relax and see the ball as well as possible and I did that. But that doesn't make it any less disappointing. I felt like I got punched in the stomach when I saw I was the third out of the inning."

The Rays had another shot in the ninth, when Abernathy hit the ball hard up the middle and made a daring dash to second for a one-out double, but Randy Winn lined to first and Steve Cox flied to left.

"Tonight," Grieve said, "was the epitome of the whole streak: almost."

The Rays did some good things. Rupe matched his career high with nine strikeouts for the second straight game, and the Rays scored as many as five for the first time since Saturday.

But they did some bad things, too. Vaughn, making the first of what is supposed to be three straight starts in leftfield, turned the job into an adventure, failing to catch two balls that turned into run-producing doubles.

It was the 10th game of the streak that started April 25 that the Rays lost by one or two runs, but getting close is not making it any easier. "We fought hard and we fought back, but here again we came up short," McRae said. "In simple terms, we're not playing well enough to win."

And with a two-week road trip that takes them to New York, Baltimore, Seattle and Oakland starting after Sunday's game, the Rays are facing some urgency to end the streak tonight or Sunday.

"I think the more games (the streak) keeps going, the more it just keeps escalating how important it is to get a win," said Tanyon Sturtze, who starts tonight.

Again, McGregor could relate.

"I didn't know anyone could lose three weeks in a row," he said. "I couldn't believe we did it. These guys are two weeks. Hopefully, we won't be the ones to break their streak for them."