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Tampa Bay stays hot, getting hitting, pitching and a 6-3 victory to sweep the first-place Phillies.
By MARC TOPKIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 15, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- There was a time not so long ago when it seemed the Rays couldn't do anything right. "We weren't pitching, we weren't hitting, we were making errors," Greg Vaughn said. "We were doing all the things you're not supposed to do to win."
Then there was a stretch when they would do one thing well but not the others. They'd get a well-pitched game but wouldn't hit. They'd score a bunch of runs but give up even more.
Now they're doing everything right.
The Rays completed a sweep of the National League East-leading Phillies with a 6-3 victory Thursday afternoon, giving them six wins in their past eight games and their first three-game winning streak of the season.
"We talked about meshing. We talked about jelling. And I think things are coming together," manager Hal McRae said. "This is what we had hoped for. I know through experience we can win games without swinging the bats well or without pitching well, but one side picks the other up. We were unable to do that. Now we're capable of having a well-pitched game and not swing that bats, or the pitcher just keeping us in the game and we can win the game 8-6.
"There were times those possibilities were sort of remote. Either we were going to play great or we were going to lose the game. We couldn't make mistakes. We couldn't walk batters. We couldn't leave runners in scoring position without getting them in. If we did, we were doomed. I feel now we have a chance to win games without playing a perfect ballgame."
Thursday, before an announced 11,606 at Tropicana Field, they played a game that was pretty close to perfect, taking an early lead behind the dynamic duo of Vaughn and Fred McGriff and riding the dominant pitching of Ryan Rupe.
Rupe retired his first 10 batters, allowed three hits over seven innings and struck out eight, matching his career high. "Outstanding," catcher Mike DiFelice said. "Obviously, he has a good idea what he wants to be doing."
Since returning from a 21/2-week tuneup stint with minor-league pitching coaches Joe Coleman and Chuck Hernandez, Rupe has had three quality starts out of four and has won two straight, taking the team lead with four victories.
Rupe is working faster now, and he has better command of his fastball and more confidence in his slider and changeup. "He's pitching," McRae said.
Vaughn and McGriff, hitting a combined .411 in June, staked the Rays to a 3-0 first-inning lead. Vaughn drove in the first run with a double, and McGriff knocked in two with another double, then added an eighth-inning home run, his fourth in six games.
And when the lead became imperiled as the Phillies drew within 5-3 and had men on second and third with two out in the eighth, Esteban Yan came on to strike out Phillies star Bobby Abreu, then breeze through the ninth for his third straight save and eighth overall. "Probably the key at-bat for the game," McRae said.
The team's overall improvement has been, to put it politely, a gradual process. "There's nothing sudden about this," McRae said. "It's been 45 games coming for me, and 60 for the ballclub."
McRae said it is the result of "what we're getting from the guys," but it seems to be a product of several factors: veteran hitters rebounding after slow starts, improvement by the pitchers, and changes McRae has made to the lineup.
"We've got some guys out there that are young and fast and naive, and sometimes that's good," McRae said. "Sometimes that is what is needed. Right now I think that's what we needed, young guys that are willing to play hard and make mistakes and get better."
The Phillies are the second first-place team Tampa Bay has swept, and the Rays may have pulled it off just it time. Philadelphia has lost 9 of 11, its eight-game lead on June 1 whithering to two.
The Rays were the last American League team -- and second-to-last in the majors, ahead of Pittsburgh -- to win three straight games, a meager accomplishment but an achievement nonetheless.
"It's more embarrassing than anything, two months into the season you get your first three-game winning streak," Vaughn said, "But then in return it's a positive, so there's give and take there. This is a feeling you have to have every time you come to the park. You have to expect to win."