OAKLAND, Calif. - The Devil Rays weren't playing in the World Series, so it wasn't exactly a Kirk Gibson moment. But it was close, at least for the Rays.
Aubrey Huff had been out four days with back spasms and was so sure he wasn't going to play Wednesday night that he didn't even take batting practice. According to Huff, he told manager Lou Piniella he could play, but Piniella told him to take one more game off and come back strong today in Oakland.
But Piniella did have a plan in the back of his head.
"I knew from the beginning that I could use him," Piniella said. "We didn't want to play him if he had to run and I had to put him in the field. But I told him we might save him for an opportune spot."
What's more opportune than bases loaded, ninth inning, one out, tie game? Huff didn't deliver an I-can't-believe-what-I-just-saw homer, but his groundout deep in the hole between the first and second basemen was good enough to drive in the winning run.
Huff pinch hit for rookie B.J. Upton and sparked the Rays' 6-5 victory to complete the team's first sweep of the Mariners.
"I hated to hit for the young kid," Piniella said, "but we tried to get the best matchup we could."
It might have been the best groundout of Huff's career.
"I felt good," Huff said. "I could have played. The back felt fine."
It felt even better after his winning RBI.
SO-SO SOSA: Weird night for starting pitcher Jorge Sosa.
He ended up with a no-decision after blowing up in the sixth inning and blowing a four-run lead. But it wasn't all his fault, and he was downright dominant in the first five innings. Sosa retired the first 10 batters, striking out five. Through five, he had allowed only a single and a walk and had struck out six.
His problems started in the sixth when Jose Lopez led off with a single. Ichiro Suzuki smashed a grounder to third baseman Jorge Cantu, who threw the ball into rightfield trying to start a double play.
"That's an inexperienced play on our third baseman," Piniella said. "With Ichiro, you're not going to turn a double play. So you wait for the second baseman to get to the bag and you get the forceout with a four-run lead and you negate the start of a big inning. As it was, we should've been out of it."
Instead of having one out and a runner on first, the Mariners had runners on the corners and no outs. Sure enough, they had a big inning, capped by Bucky Jacobsen's mammoth three-run homer that landed in the upper deck of Safeco Field to give the Mariners a 5-4 lead.
THE LITTLE THINGS: The Rays' Geoff Blum hasn't had much of an offensive season, batting only .221. But he played a key role in Wednesday's come-from-behind victory. He led off the seventh with a walk and scored the tying run on Julio Lugo's sacrifice fly. Then he led off the ninth with another walk and scored the winner on Huff's grounder.
NO DEAL: Contract talks between the Rays and their young star outfielders, Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli, have broken down.
Talks are not expected to resume until after the season.
MEMORY LANE: Thursday marked a couple of neat anniversaries in Mariners history and, indirectly, Rays history.
On Aug. 26, 1991, Tampa native Tino Martinez hit his first major-league homer off Milwaukee's Julio Machado in the Mariners' 5-4, 14-inning victory.
And on Aug. 26, 1998, Piniella had one of his classic tantrums, kicking his hat 12 times at Jacobs Field in Cleveland in an argument with umpire Larry Barnett.
