ANGELS 8, RAYS 4: Eduardo Perez is lost for season as team slips to major-league-worst 9-21.
By MARC TOPKIN
Published May 10, 2004
[AP photo]
Rays catcher Toby Hall tags out Troy Glaus after he tried to score on a fielder's choice in the second.
ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Rays headed home from another long road trip Sunday night with insult and injury.
The 8-4 loss to the Angels was their fifth straight, 12th in their past 14, and left them, for the first time this season, with the worst record in the majors at 9-21.
To make it worse, they lost infielder/outfielder Eduardo Perez for the remainder of the season after he tore his left Achilles' tendon running the bases.
"Brutal," catcher Toby Hall said. "It's the craziest I've seen it in the last three years as far as the same stuff. I don't get it. I think a lot if us don't get it. It's getting old."
So many things are going wrong, and so many people are upset for so many different reasons, that it's hard to even say what their biggest problem is.
"It seems like we haven't won in a month," Aubrey Huff said. "We're not doing anything right. I can't explain anything. It almost feels like we're jinxed."
The Rays' primary shortcoming has been a startling lack of offense.
So Sunday, they scored four runs, their most in five games, and rapped 11 hits, their most since May 1. They even got some unexpected help when the Angels, who have been the best team in the majors, made a handful of mistakes on the bases and in the field.
And typical of the way things have been going, they lost because two of their best pitchers, starter Victor Zambrano and reliever Lance Carter, had bad days.
Zambrano, who hasn't won in nearly a month, put the Rays in an early hole as only he can, allowing four runs in the third on two singles. The problem was the two batters he hit, the one he walked, the stolen base, and the sac fly by Casey Kotchman, the St. Petersburg native who made his major-league debut.
Zambrano said he didn't feel any differently coming off a career-high 134-pitch effort in his last outing Tuesday, but he clearly was not as sharp, allowing a season-high six runs in a season-low matching five innings. "He was flat with his pitches," manager Lou Piniella.
The Rays trailed 5-1 in the fifth, but their offense picked up after Perez went down trying for a leadoff triple. After Angels rightfielder Vladimir Guerrero misplayed Jose Cruz's fly ball into a three-base error, the Rays followed with three straight hits to make it 5-3.
But Zambrano gave up a homer in the fifth to ex-Ray Jose Guillen, on a 3-and-0 fastball, and the Rays couldn't close the gap.
They got one run back in the sixth on a run-scoring single by Cruz, but Hall struck out with two on to end the inning. They tried again in the seventh, loading the bases with two outs, but dazzling reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who has 28 strikeouts in 17 innings, came on and froze Robert Fick with a third-strike fastball.
Carter made it worse.
Guillen lashed a two-out double, then had to be carried off the field after spraining his right knee and ankle sliding into the bag.
After a lengthy delay, Jeff DaVanon knocked Carter's first pitch over the right-centerfield fence.
"Everyone's trying to stay positive in everything we do, but it's very hard to come to the park when we lose again and we lose again," Zambrano said. "Everyone's trying to give 100 percent to try to change that.
"We've got to keep it together. It's the only way we can get out of it."
