Alternative to Yan offers Yan-like end

© St. Petersburg Times
published August 21, 2002

BALTIMORE -- The names, the faces, the circumstances -- and the excuses -- change, but the results remain the same.

Again, the Rays got a good start, this time from Joe Kennedy. Again, they got enough offense, this time home runs by Ben Grieve and Chris Gomez and a ninth-inning shot by Aubrey Huff. And again, they got beat at the end, losing 7-4 to the Orioles.

This time it was Lee Gardner, a 27-year-old rookie recalled Sunday to bolster the bullpen, giving it up, allowing the tying run on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly and the winning runs on a three-run homer by Gary Matthews.

"Here you can't make mistakes," Gardner said. "I'm not going to forget it. I don't like this feeling. Carrying the fish bucket isn't where you want to be."

It was the seventh time this season the Rays lost after leading with two outs in the ninth, and the third time in five days they did so when a home run erased their lead. It also was the 10th game they lost on the final pitch.

'We won't allow ourselves to be a good club," manager Hal McRae said. "We get there and we won't take the next step. ... We won't allow ourselves to get the momentum."

Gardner didn't deserve all the blame, however, as third baseman Jared Sandberg made a critical error that set up the rally, booting a one-out ground ball.

"Gardner threw the ball good enough," McRae said. "He did his job. This is the big leagues. We're supposed to catch the ball and we didn't catch the ball."

The score was 3-3 going to the ninth, the result of Kennedy settling down after a shaky first and Grieve and Gomez hitting back-to-back homers on back-to-back nights, another first that comes amazingly late in Rays history. Grieve's 435-foot blast soared out of the park and was the 29th ball to land on adjacent Eutaw Street in the stadium's 11-year history, the first by a Ray.

After a ninth-inning rally was aborted when Randy Winn's single was followed by Carl Crawford double-play liner, the Rays took a 4-3 lead on Huff's opposite-field homer off Willis Roberts.

Gardner, taking his first turn in the closer rotation, got the first out on a grounder to first. He should have had the second, but Chris Richard's grounder inexplicably skipped past Sandberg. "Routine ground ball," Sandberg said. "It didn't do anything. I just missed it. And I let the team down."

With Richard on first, the Rays moved the middle infielders to double-play depth. That made the error cost them twice as second baseman Brent Abernathy would have been in position to make a play on the Luis Lopez liner that skipped into rightfield for a single.

"It's one of those things where you've got to end it, and I didn't do it," Gardner said. "It's one of those things I have to overcome and should have overcome, I guess."

Instead, the O's had two on with one out. Gardner walked Melvin Mora, then allowed the tying run on Jerry Hairston's sacrifice fly to left. Matthews ended the game three pitches later with a drive over the rightfield fence.

"We have to step up," McRae said. "When the game is there we have to step up and make the plays and get the base hits because that's what winning is all about. If we don't do that we're not going to win. That's one of the requirements of winning. ... Otherwise, you can't win. Otherwise, you're a loser."