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Road trip ends appropriately

O's win 6-2 to conclude a 10-game voyage that included a five-game skid, a 3-7 record and a pair of benching incidents.

By MARC TOPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 17, 2001

BALTIMORE -- The Rays were hoping to put a good ending on a bad road trip, figuring a win Monday over Baltimore would make the journey, past and future, seem a little more tolerable. "I'm not going to downplay it," manager Larry Rothschild said before the game, "it would be a good game for us to win going home."

Instead, like so many others this young season, it turned out to be a good game to forget.

Once again, the Rays didn't hit. They made inexcusable mistakes. And they lost, 6-2 to the Orioles.

This time the game was decided in a folly-filled seventh inning in which Ken Hill hit one batter, walked two, threw consecutive wild pitches and botched what should have been an easy double play.

"A crazy four batters in a row," catcher John Flaherty said. "And then things kind of got away from us."

The Rays come back to Tropicana Field tonight with a 4-9 record, the worst 13-game start in their four seasons, having gone 3-7 on an 11-day trip that proved to be quite a journey.

Since they last played at the Trop, they shipped out their second baseman, Bobby Smith, who cleared waivers and ended up in Durham. They benched their third baseman, Vinny Castilla, who is pleading to be traded or released. They brought up Aubrey Huff to play third and added Rusty Meacham to stabilize the bullpen. They played two games without their centerfielder, Gerald Williams, who was benched after a confrontation with the manager.

They had some good games, winning three of four in one stretch, and some bad ones, losing the first five by a combined score of 33-9.

While their pitching has been relatively solid, they lead the league with 16 errors and are next to last with a .224 batting average. Ben Grieve, in a 1-for-31 hole, is of particular concern.

"We've got our spurts when we play well," Fred McGriff said, "but we haven't gotten real consistent. Offensively, we just haven't clicked. We score runs when he hit home runs. If we don't hit home runs, we struggle."

That's where their problems started Monday, as they managed just three hits in six innings off Jason Johnson, whom they traded to the O's in March 1999 for long-forgotten outfielder Danny Clyburn.

But an encouraging effort by Ryan Rupe (six hits and two runs in 52/3 innings) kept the Rays in the game. It was 2-1 Baltimore going to the seventh on a cold (55 degrees at game-time), damp and quiet night at Camden Yards, where the crowd of 24,558 was the smallest for a regularly scheduled game and the fourth less than 30,000.

Hill, who said he was struggling mechanically, had just about everything go wrong. He hit the first batter, Jerry Hairston. He threw consecutive wild pitches, allowing Hairston to third. He walked Brady Anderson, who stole second. He walked Mike Bordick to load the bases.

And then he made the worst throw of all. Delino DeShields tapped a ball back to the mound to set an easy double play, but instead the Rays got no one out.

Hill short-armed the throw, looking like he was lobbing a dart, and the high toss pulled catcher Flaherty just off the plate.

"I was trying to get it out of my glove and I couldn't get it. Then I rushed it and threw it a little bit high," Hill said. "I've got to make that play."

Flaherty felt the same way. "I'm trying to get my momentum going for a double play there and when I saw him double-dribble, so to speak, I probably should have, I thought I did, just planted on home plate and try to reach up for the high throw, but obviously (umpire John Shulock) didn't think I was on," he said.

It hurt even more an out later when Greg Myers, who homered earlier, ripped a single to right, scoring two runs to make it 5-1.

"You can't walk people at the end of the game and you can't make errors and that's what we did," Rothschild said. "And that's where the runs came from."

For the night, the Rays had as many wild pitches (four) as hits, and added two more errors to their total.

"We need to put it in gear and start winning a bunch of games." Rothschild said.

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