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Debut spoiled by 9-run eighth

Rays fall 9-1 in Hal McRae's first game as manager.

[Times photo: Michael Rondou] As the Sox score nine runs in the eighth inning, starting pitcher Albie Lopez, right, and fellow pitcher Bryan Rekar find it hard to watch.

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- "For seven innings," Hal McRae said, "we played a good game."

For seven innings Wednesday night McRae was looking like the first Rays manager to win his first game.

Then the Red Sox did to McRae's Rays what they'd done to Larry Rothschild's Rays 24 hours earlier. They bombed them into submission, winning 9-1.

How frustrating could this be, seeing a one-run lead vanish under a hail of hits, two of them home runs, in a nine-run eighth inning?

"It can't be frustrating the first night," McRae said with a wan smile. "But over time, it can be."

For all intents and purposes, Rothschild's 499th and final game as the Rays' inaugural manager was over after two innings when three home runs off the since-demoted Travis Harper gave Boston seven runs in its 10-0 romp.

This time, Albie Lopez nursed a 1-0 Tampa Bay lead into the eighth inning before walking Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez. Then Tanyon Sturtze took over and the announced crowd gave Lopez as much of an ovation as 16,622 fans can give in cavernous Tropicana Field.

When Dante Bichette, already the victim of Rays rightfielder Jose Guillen's throw home in the sixth inning, grounded into a double play, the Rays were four outs from giving McRae a win.

Then the wheels came off, slowly at first. With Everett at third, Scott Hatteberg tied the score with a looping single to centerfield. "I thought I made a good pitch," Sturtze said. "He got a broken-bat hit.

"Then they hit everything. They hit good pitches; they hit bad pitches."

Shea Hillenbrand singled and Brian Daubach, who hit the last Boston home run of Rothschild's regime, hit the first of McRae's.

And the Red Sox were only warming up. Two more singles, a wild pitch and Jose Offerman's double finished Sturtze. Ken Hill took over, Everett tripled in his second at-bat of the inning and Darren Lewis, who had run for Ramirez and had been wiped out by Bichette's double-play grounder, homered.

Rays general manager Chuck LaMar, who had pulled the plug on Rothschild about 24 hours earlier, met with McRae briefly in the manager's office.

"I told him, 'You know what? You were awful close to getting the game ball.' I'm sure the club would have given him the game ball if we'd won. When Sturtze got that double-play ball, you just had a sense, even though we gave up some opportunities (to score) early, that it was going to be our night. Then the wheels came off.

"You're not going to see too many games where nine runs are scored with two outs. But Albie was outstanding. You're not going to see a starting pitcher in the American League -- except maybe for Pedro (Martinez) -- throw any better than Albie Lopez."

Martinez pitches tonight.

[Times photo: Michael Rondou] Hal McRae, right, chats with coaches (from left) Billy Hatcher, Wade Boggs and Terry Collins just before gametime.

To add insult to injury, Rolando Arrojo, the ex-Rays starter traded to Colorado for Vinny Castilla, was in the game by then in relief of Paxton Crawford. Arrojo got the win -- and got Castilla to end the game with a grounder.

The Rays ended two scoreless streaks -- 25 innings against the Red Sox, 21 in Tropicana Field -- in the second inning. Ben Grieve ended his 0-for-16 slump with a leadoff single to right, Jose Guillen singled to left and Crawford wild-pitched them to third and second with nobody out.

Castilla, out of Rothschild's doghouse and in McRae's lineup, struck out to a chorus of boos, but John Flaherty sent Grieve home with a sacrifice fly.

Guillen took third but was stranded when Felix Martinez popped out. "We were able to get men in scoring position," McRae said, "but we couldn't get them in."

Still, when Guillen gunned down Bichette in the sixth, LaMar said, "I thought we were going to win this one. I thought we were going to win it long before that."

Bichette opened the inning for the Red Sox with a double that rolled to the wall in left-centerfield, and took third on Hatteberg's grounder. Hillenbrand then lofted a Lopez pitch to moderately shallow rightfield.

Even before the ball began its descent, the noise from the crowd anticipating a play at the plate began to build.

It wasn't even close.

Guillen caught the ball on the run and his throw reached Flaherty knee-high on the fly about a step toward third base. Bichette, a good 10 feet up the line when the ball arrived, was tagged out easily.

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