YANKEES 12, RAYS 1: Pitching falters as otherwise rewarding series ends in split.
By MARC TOPKIN
Published April 1, 2004
TOKYO - Wednesday was going to be a long day to begin with for the Devil Rays, and the 12-1 loss to the Yankees only made it longer.
The Rays left after the game to fly home from Japan, and with a 121/2-hour flight time and a 14-hour time difference, they were basically stuck on Wednesday for almost two days, arriving home about 11:40 p.m.
"It's going to be Wednesday for a long time," Tino Martinez said even before the game.
The disappointing performance capped what had otherwise been a successful season-opening trip to Japan that exposed the Rays to Japan's feverish baseball fans, and a picturesque and history-rich country to the Rays.
"I went and saw a few things," manager Lou Piniella said. "I saw some things on the field I didn't like tonight."
Most of the problems were on the mound. The Rays allowed the Yankees four homers: two three-run shots by Jorge Posada, a two-run shot by Tony Clark and a two-run shot by native son Hideki Matsui that made the Tokyo Dome crowd of 55,000 sound like a rock concert.
Jeremi Gonzalez allowed five runs on four hits, including two homers, and walked four in 42/3 innings. And that wasn't the worst of it. Of the 77 pitches he threw, 39 missed the strike zone.
"It's disappointing," Gonzalez said. "I have to work harder."
The five relievers didn't do much better. Damian Moss, for example, hit his first batter, walked his second and gave up a three-run homer to his third.
The Rays led 1-0 early, much to the delight of the 1,874 fans who turned out at 5 a.m. Tampa Bay time to watch at Tropicana Field, and much to the dismay of virtually all the pro-Yankee crowd that packed the Tokyo Dome.
But the moods began to shift quickly on both sides of the world, and the Rays fans had to wish they'd never gotten out of bed.
The Yankees tied the score in the third, went ahead 3-1 in the fourth, then broke the game open with a five-run fifth.
The Rays couldn't do much against Kevin Brown, who held them to six hits over seven innings in his Yankees debut.
Despite the lopsided defeat, the Rays said the experience and exposure they garnered on the trip, and the confidence that grew after Tuesday's season-opening win, would not be diminished.
"We came here to open up a baseball season and we split," Piniella said. "And when you play the New York Yankees and you split, you feel good."
When the Rays landed at St. Pete-Clearwater Airport, Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner was among the people there to greet them - actually, he was waiting for his own team, which was due shortly. The Rays' flight was uneventful and relatively quiet, which made for a successful conclusion to the whole trip.
"I think it was a win-win for Major League Baseball, for the United States and Japan, and for the Yankees and the Devil Rays," Piniella said.
