Rays/MLB

Struggling to find home

The Yankees get to Scott Kazmir (with some help from Rocco Baldelli) and come within two outs of their second straight shutout.

By MARC TOPKIN
Published July 9, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - The soft, tender patch of skin on the tip of his left middle finger, the remnants of an old callous, was barely a concern for Scott Kazmir as he left the Tropicana Field clubhouse Saturday night.

The Devil Rays ace left-hander said it didn't affect the way he threw the ball in the 5-1 loss to the Yankees, and "no, no, no, not at all" it won't keep him from pitching Tuesday when he makes his first appearance as an American League All-Star.

But the slider he threw to Johnny Damon with two on and one out in the seventh inning, the count full and - with the Yankees leading 1-0 and the Tampa Bay bats rendered useless - the game on the line, that was something he would take with him as he headed toward his Harbour Island condo.

"It wasn't really in the location I wanted. I wanted to get it a little bit more away from him," Kazmir said. "I'm probably going to be thinking later on tonight before I go to sleep that I should have maybe thrown him a fastball instead."

Damon, who wasn't in the lineup due to an oblique strain, ripped the pitch for a two-run triple, expanding the Yankees lead to 3-0, and that was that.

For everything that had been going Kazmir's way, his election to the All-Star team by a vote of his peers July 2, a stunning two-hit, 10-strikeout, complete-game shutout on Monday, he lost Saturday for doing little wrong over 6¹/₃ innings.

"He definitely pitched well enough to win," Rays manager Joe Maddon said.

The rest of the Rays (38-50) didn't do much to help before a lively crowd of 34,787, the largest at Tropicana Field since opening day.

The offense was again shut down, this time by Chien-Ming Wang, whose sinker ball Maddon described as a bowling ball, and nearly shut out for a second straight night, a too-little, too-late ninth-inning run ending their scoreless streak at 19 innings. The Rays are just 10-for-62 in the two games (a .161 average) and 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

"It's amazing," Maddon said. "After having swung the bats so well (against Boston) with a little momentum going on, I thought we would have been able to at least produce a couple runs."

The Rays said the credit should go to Wang, who worked into the ninth and allowed only six hits. But they helped.

After leading off the first with a single, Julio Lugo apparently couldn't pick up Carl Crawford's infield bouncer and stopped just short of the base, essentially walking into an out. Maddon, admitting he was trying to make something happen as the zeroes mounted, had catcher Josh Paul steal after a two-out walk in the fifth, and he was thrown out.

The Yankees scored the first run in the sixth thanks to an unusual error by Baldelli, who, after some miscommunication with rightfielder Damon Hollins and the usual battle with the Tropicana Field lights, botched Jason Giambi's line drive, turning what should have been the inning's first out into a two-base error.

Yankees manager Joe Torre had seen enough of Kazmir to know runs would be precious, and he took Giambi, his top home run hitter and RBI man, out of the game to use Damon as a pinch-runner.

And of course, being Torre, it worked perfectly as Jorge Posada bounced a ball up the middle that Damon was able to score on and Giambi would not have.

"I misplayed the ball, obviously," Baldelli said.

"I think it might have messed up the momentum (Kazmir) had rolling."

Baldelli had an immediate chance to atone when Crawford tripled with one out in the home sixth. All Baldelli had to do was get the ball past the drawn-in infield, but he swung at a 2-and-0 sinker and managed just a chopper to shortstop. Crawford, breaking on contact, was out easily.

When Kazmir came out to warm up for the seventh, he looked at the tender spot on his finger after his first toss, and Maddon and trainer Ron Porterfield quickly came to the mound to watch more closely before deciding he could continue.

"The ball was still coming out of his hand real well," Maddon said.

"He did not wince. He did not say 'ouch'. There was no kind of physical discomfort, I don't think. When I walked back and watched him on the first hitter and he struck him out, he looked fine. I thought, 'Okay, he's fine.' "

But this time, fine wasn't good enough.

[Last modified July 9, 2006, 02:35:50]