RAYS 6, MARLINS 4: The Rays become the first baseball team to go over .500 after being 18 games under.
By MARC TOPKIN
Published June 27, 2004
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
Rays fans these days are not only more numerous, they are more interesting. This group casts a spell from the rightfield bleachers.
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
Danys Baez got himself into a bases-loaded jam in the ninth, worked his way out of it, then celebrates with catcher Toby Hall after the final out is recorded.
ST. PETERSBURG - The Devil Rays insisted .500 wasn't a destination but merely a mile marker on the way to bigger things. Saturday, they moved past it - in a hurry.
The Rays used the speed of Joey Gathright and Carl Crawford to break a seventh-inning tie, and their blazing bullpen held on for a 6-4 victory Saturday over the world champion Marlins before another throbbing crowd of 28,361.
The Rays improved to 36-35 with the win, becoming the first team in major-league history to make it over .500 after being 18 or more games under. And, feeling the confidence of a major-league best 26-7 record since May 20, they plan to keep going.
"Why stop there?" Crawford said. "We're playing well right now. We just want to see what we can do. Who knows what can happen?"
Who knows?
The Yankees and Red Sox lost Saturday, putting the Rays nine games out of first (the closest they've ever been this late in a year) and four behind the AL wild-card leading Sox.
They don't want to be bothered with the details right now.
"I haven't noticed anything," manager Lou Piniella said. "I really haven't. We've got to play, that's all we've got to do. We've got to play. I think we forget all of that and just play them one at a time and hopefully keep winning some baseball games."
"The idea is to remain stupid," Aubrey Huff said. "Remain stupid, and just go out and play and have fun."
They've had plenty, winning six straight series and 15 of their past 16 games, including a major-league record-tying 13 straight interleague games.
Saturday, they raced to a 4-0 lead in the second, loading the bases with two outs on a single and two walks, then scoring two on Crawford's ground-ball single and two more on Geoff Blum's bloop single.
Mark Hendrickson, who had been their hottest starter, wasn't sharp, and gave it all back in the fourth, though Gathright hurt him by losing a ball in the lights that dropped for a two-run triple.
"My mistake," said Gathright, making his second big-league start. "I messed up."
He made up for it quickly.
Gathright drew a walk to lead off the seventh, waited out three throws to first by lefty Matt Perisho to easily steal his first base, then scored the go-ahead run when Crawford fought off a two-strike pitch and flared a liner over shortstop Alex Gonzalez.
"I knew if I could just get a base hit he was going to score," said Crawford, who turned the soft liner into a double.
"There was one out, so I had to see if the shortstop was going to catch it, and if not, just go, "' Gathright said. "As fast as you can."
The Rays already had a fast team, led by Crawford and Rocco Baldelli, but with Gathright in the lineup they have enough speed to make a pretty good showing on the track.
"I hope it's a big weapon," Crawford said. "With me and him running on the basepaths like that I'm pretty sure the pitchers hate it and the catchers don't like having to deal with it all the time. If we use it the right way it can be a problem, a big problem for other teams."
The Rays sealed the win with Huff's 10th homer in the eighth and another strong outing from the bullpen, with Jorge Sosa, Jesus Colome and Danys Baez combining for five scoreless innings, allowing only two hits. During the 33-game stretch, the bullpen is 12-1 with 13 saves and a 2.76 ERA.
"You can't ask for any more than that," Piniella said.
As much as the Rays just want to keep playing, it is getting harder to ignore how far they've come in little more than a month.
"I'm proud of our team," Piniella said. "It's a credit to the players out there. They're the ones who get it done. They've played awfully hard. They really have. They've played well. And we've done it (at) home and (on the) road. It's been impressive. It really has.
"It's good to do things that nobody else has done."
