Yankees' payback begins with first pitch

YANKEES 13, RAYS 0: Alfonso Soriano's homer leads off a 6-run first inning in Tampa Bay's worst shutout loss.

By KEVIN KELLY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 17, 2002

NEW YORK -- Toby Hall looked at the clock in the visitors' clubhouse and thought ahead.

[AP photo] Rays leftfielder Jason Tyner chases a ball hit off the wall by the Yankees' Bernie Williams for a run-scoring double in the fifth.

It was a little after 10:30 p.m. Thursday and the Rays catcher was busy pulling on a dark-colored suit in preparation for a short trip to Baltimore. If everything went as planned, Hall figured that the sting of a 13-0 loss against the Yankees would subside well before sunrise.

"Unless I have a dream or nightmare, that's the only time I'm going to allow myself to think about it," he said. "If you keep thinking about it then you ruin the next day."

Riding high after scoring 10 against the Yankees Wednesday night, the Rays slinked out of New York in near silence after the worst shutout loss in club history.

"If you're going to beat them," starter Ryan Rupe said, "you have to be at the top of your game."

Nobody was for the Rays.

Rupe endured his worst outing of the season -- nine runs in three innings -- while the Rays tied a season high with four errors and could do little at the plate before 32,695 at Yankee Stadium.

Starter David Wells allowed three hits in his first complete-game shutout in more than two years.

"We didn't hit very well. We didn't pitch very well. We didn't play defense," leftfielder Jason Tyner said. "You're not going to beat the Yankees doing that."

New York, which led 11-0 after the fourth inning, is 8-1 against the Rays and has outscored them 59-20 this season.

Tampa Bay has lost 17 of its past 19 and moves on to Baltimore to start the second leg of a challenging four-city tour. Nine games remain against the Orioles, Mariners and Athletics.

"We want to win enough games to feel we had a successful trip," manager Hal McRae said before the game. "A win (Thursday) would help. But it's just the first leg. We've got nine more games.

"It's the total that makes it a good trip. Not where you get them. They don't put any names beside W's."

With a 1-1 record and 7.94 lifetime ERA vs. the Yankees entering his first start against them this season, Rupe was out of the game earlier than he had been all season.

"He's pitched some good games," McRae said, "but this wasn't one of them."

The right-hander threw 69 pitches -- three of those went over the outfield fence -- and labeled the outing embarrassing. It began when Alfonso Soriano hit Rupe's first pitch into Monument Park to start a six-run first inning.

"You're going to have these days," Rupe said. "I don't care who you are. Roger Clemens has these kinds of days. But you want to win them all.

"And right now, for this team, I think for us to win our starting pitching is going to have to be the catalyst. That's the way we want it. ... I don't care what people say, we may not be the best team, but our starters have a little bit of a demeanor going right now. We want to keep the ball. We want to pitch late in the game. We want people to know who we are."

Four of the runs the Yankees scored in the first were earned. Two errors by Chris Gomez and one by rightfielder Ben Grieve accounted for the unearned runs. The three errors tied a club record for an inning.

Wells, who lives in Clearwater during the offseason, was magnificent in his first complete game of the season. The left-hander, who improved to 5-1 with a 3.24 ERA against the Rays, retired the first 10 batters he faced.

Tyner singled up the middle with one out in the fourth.

"He'd throw the ball and it looked pretty good but it would just run," Tyner said. "It's the first time I've seen him. He's pretty tough."

Wells threw 112 pitches, struck out six and walked none.

"If anyone is capable of throwing strikes every time he winds up, it's Boomer," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "There's no question he seemed to have a sense early on that he didn't want to mess around. He didn't want to do too much other than use both sides of the plate."

The only other hits the Rays got were a pair of doubles to rightfield by Jason Conti, who started in centerfield because Randy Winn was scratched with a tight right hamstring.

"We didn't play a good baseball game," McRae said. "But I wouldn't say I was disappointed. We played a bad game. We haven't played many, but this was one where we didn't do many things right."

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