Rays/MLB

Rays count on the power of amnesia

ANGELS 15, RAYS 6: Tampa Bay hits the road after a sloppy loss.

By MARC TOPKIN
Published July 27, 2006

	[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
	Julio Lugo, forcing Howie Kendrick at second, says he's willing to listen to the Rays' offers.

ST. PETERSBURG - There wasn't much memorable for the Devil Rays to take with them Wednesday as they left Tropicana Field.

Left-handed ace Scott Kazmir was scratched from at least his next start due to soreness and tightness in his left shoulder. Shortstop Julio Lugo returned to the lineup, but his status was made no clearer, with neither a trade nor a contract extension worked out. And poor performances by starter Casey Fossum and Edwin Jackson and some overall sloppiness led to an embarrassing 10-run second inning, the prime element in a brutal 15-6 matinee loss to the Angels.

It was the kind of performance, manager Joe Maddon said, that was best forgotten.

And he figured sometime after his afternoon trip to International Plaza for a haircut and dinner at the Timpano Italian Chop House in Old Hyde Park, and before he made it home to pack for the weekend trip to New York and have his nightly chat with girlfriend Jaye Sousoures in California, he'd be over it.

"A game where you get such a lopsided defeat, I prefer just letting this go," Maddon said. "You look for different things within the game, either positive or negative, to talk about among the players, but overall I really try to forget about a game like today as quickly as I possibly can. When you give up a 10-run inning, it's hard to win."

What made it more frustrating was that the Rays actually led 4-2 after the first and had the potential for a big day as Angels starter Bartolo Colon, who was largely ineffective, left the game after one inning with what was described as right elbow irritation and could be headed to the disabled list.

But Fossum failed miserably to take advantage, allowing a walk and four hits among the six batters he faced to start the second, and Jackson was equally ineffective.

Fossum, whose 1¹/₃-inning start was the second briefest of his career, said he was not able to get comfortable. "I never got into a rhythm," he said. "It happened so quickly today. The game sped up, and I sped up with it. I never really had a chance to slow myself down and make some quality pitches."

Jackson, who has yet to get the results Maddon insists he is capable of, felt he was more a victim of the Angels' ability to hit the ball where the Rays weren't and said he made just one major mistake in the inning, allowing a two-run double to Juan Rivera after getting ahead in the count 1-and-2 and leaving a fastball up and over the plate.

Maddon agreed. "He had one ball and two strikes on him, and there were a whole bunch of different ways to go to get him out," he said. "That particular moment may have been the moment of the game. You look back and the score is so lopsided and you think how could it be one pitch, but it might have been. That's inexperience, and we'll talk to him about it."

Among Fossum, Jackson and Chad Harville, the Rays threw 56 pitches to 15 Angels over the 34-minute, 30-second second, allowing a season-high 10 runs on nine hits, two walks, a wild pitch and an error by third baseman Ty Wigginton.

"We had 'em," Maddon said. "We let 'em up and they just kept finding holes and spots and whatever. It was just one of those days."

Thing is, the Rays had one of those days Saturday, too, when they allowed the Orioles nine runs in a 35-minute and 1-second, 57-pitch, 14-batter seventh. But that was after scoring 10 of their own in the fifth, and they won 13-12.

"Ten runs is tough," Maddon said. "We've done that twice in this homestand, had one of those incredibly difficult innings."

The homestand ended 3-3, an improvement on the 0-7 start to the post-All-Star portion of the schedule but not necessarily encouraging.

The Rays got a look at what their offense could be like without Lugo, who missed three games, and it was stagnant and concerning. Rays pitchers allowed 49 runs and 85 hits in the six games, and both the rotation and the bullpen look to need realignment, if not replacements.

"A lot of the guys are extended right now, and they have been," Maddon said. "The day off is coming at a pretty good time right now."

[Last modified July 27, 2006, 01:51:49]