Rays walk off losers

Tampa Bay digs hole, rallies, falls in 9th. Heard this before?

By MARC TOPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2000

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- At least they make it exciting.

The Devil Rays lost on the final pitch again Wednesday night, falling to Kansas City 7-6 when Mark Quinn lined a two-out run-scoring single to left.

It was the Rays' fifth walk-off loss of the young season and the 10th time in 20 games the outcome has been decided in the final inning.

What made this one hurt more was that they had battled back from a 6-1 deficit to tie the score in the eighth and left the go-ahead run at second.

The ending brought a sense of deja vu from Tuesday. The score was 6-6 going to the bottom of the ninth, Albie Lopez was on the mound and Quinn was at the plate.

This time, it didn't come down to a throwing error, just Carlos Beltran getting a favorable call at first base to turn what seemed like a routine grounder to short into an infield hit.

The winning inning started when Dave McCarty lined Lopez's first pitch to left for a single. Just when it looked as if Jermaine Dye would get another big hit, second baseman Tony Graffanino came up with a big play. Graffanino dove hard to his right to glove Dye's sharp grounder, then flipped to shortstop Kevin Stocker to start a double play.

Beltran was next, apparently beating Stocker's throw to first. He went to third when Joe Randa singled to left and scored on Quinn's single. It was the sixth straight home game the Royals have won on their final swing.

[AP photo] Kansas City Royals' Jermaine Dye is congratulated by teammates after his grand slam in the first inning off Ryan Rupe.

Ryan Rupe put the Rays in a big hole very early.

Rupe struggled mightily in his three previous starts, raising questions if he was not throwing inside enough or if hitters had adjusted to his style. But he made a series of mechanical adjustments in a workout Saturday that both he and the Rays coaches thought would make a difference.

It wasn't exactly what they expected.

On the first pitch, Rupe gave up a single to Johnny Damon, who promptly stole second.

On the fourth pitch, Rupe hit Carlos Febles.

On the sixth pitch, he hit Mike Sweeney to load the bases.

And on the eighth pitch, he gave up a grand slam to Dye.

The centerfield blast was Dye's American League-leading 10th of the season, and it marked the fourth consecutive game (and sixth out of seven) in which he has gone deep.

Rupe had more trouble as the game went on. A one-out walk to Dye led to an unearned run in the third when his pickoff throw bounced past first (the error was charged to Fred McGriff) and Randa delivered a two-out run-scoring single.

Rupe seemed to be in another mess when Jorge Fabregas and Rey Sanchez opened the fourth with back-to-back soft singles. But the tall right-hander staged something of a rally, getting Damon on a shallow fly and Febles and Sweeney on groundouts, then punching the air in triumph as he ran off the field.

The good feeling didn't last long. Dye led off the fifth with another home run, crushing a 2-and-0 pitch over the leftfield fence, a blast estimated at 435 feet.

The Rays, meanwhile, took a while to get started. They couldn't do much against Royals rookie right-hander Chad Durbin, a 22-year-old making his fifth big-league start. They managed just four singles and had just one run until Stocker's two-run home run in the seventh on Durbin's 96th and final pitch.

Their first run came in the second, and it wasn't much to get excited about. Jose Canseco, returning to the lineup after sitting out Tuesday because of the Elian Gonzalez controversy, led off with a single. He went to second on a wild pitch and third on a groundout and scored on Vinny Castilla's single, Castilla's third hit in 13 at-bats with men in scoring position.

The Rays got men to second in each of the next three innings, but failed to produce a hit. The biggest waste came in the sixth, when Canseco and McGriff drew back-to-back walks with one out, but Castilla grounded into an inning-ending double play.

Flaherty opened the seventh with a hard single down the leftfield line, and Stocker followed with a homer to right, his second of the season, to cut the lead to 6-3. But reliever Jerry Spradlin kept them there, striking out Dave Martinez and Greg Vaughn with a man on second.

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