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Rupe rapped early, often in loss to Angels

Four HRs (three consecutive) send Anaheim past Tampa Bay 5-3.

By MARC TOPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 27, 2001

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Sitting in his office Thursday afternoon, Rays manager Hal McRae said he wished Ryan Rupe wasn't starting that night's game.

A couple hours later, there was no doubt about it.

Rupe gave up four home runs -- including three in a five-pitch span -- in just more than an inning as the Rays lost to Anaheim 5-3.

"Pitching Rupe was a bad idea," McRae said. "He made a gallant effort. He stepped up and tried to give us what we needed, but it was a bad idea."

Rupe had been scheduled to pitch tonight, with an extra day's rest as a result of the Rays being off Monday. But with Albie Lopez traded late Wednesday to Arizona, the Rays decided that rather than take Jeff Wallace out of the bullpen for a spot start, they would move Rupe up to what would have been his normal day. And they did so even though Rupe threw a 10-15 minute bullpen session before Wednesday's game, a tiring workout usually done at least two days before a start.

"We talked about it, and (Rupe) said he was fine with it," McRae said. "We didn't have to do it, and I would have preferred to do it differently. I would have preferred he have the extra day. But if you go to the bullpen guy, you take a chance on wrecking the bullpen. You're setting yourself up."

As a result, the Rays lost all the way around. Rupe made the start, but ended up facing just nine batters, allowing six to reach base. And Wallace came out of the pen to throw a career-high 62/3 innings and 93 pitches, rendering him unavailable, and the bullpen shorthanded, until Tuesday. It was the longest relief outing in team history, and matched the longest in the AL this season.

Rupe had pitched extremely well against the Angels previously, going 1-0 with a 0.77 ERA, but couldn't do much of anything right this time. He said the additional throwing session on Wednesday was not the problem.

"It doesn't matter," Rupe said. "I don't care if I ran the Boston Marathon yesterday. To give up four home runs in one inning is terrible."

So if he wasn't tired, what was the problem?

"I had nothing," he said. "Obviously it didn't work out. I wish it did. I knew the spot was open, and this was one time I needed to suck it up and try to help the team out.

"I had no location, I had nothing. I don't care who you're facing, with the stuff I had tonight it would have been ugly."

After walking leadoff man David Eckstein, he allowed a first-pitch homer to Troy Glaus, a 1-1 homer to Darin Erstad and a first-pitch homer to Garret Anderson.

It was the second time a Rays pitcher gave up back-to-back-to-back homers -- Bobby Witt did it May 19, 1999, at Texas.

Rupe got three consecutive outs to end the first, but gave up a homer to Bengie Molina on the first pitch of the second inning, and was done after Adam Kennedy followed with a single.

Despite the 5-0 deficit, the Rays had several shots to get back in the game.

A two-out single by Jason Tyner produced one run in the third, and Tyner's single to open the sixth started what looked to be a promising rally against Anaheim's Ramon Ortiz.

After Ben Grieve walked, Greg Vaughn drove a ball that rolled to the wall in left-center for a double. Tyner scored easily, but third-base coach Terry Collins held Grieve.

That left the Rays down three with men on second and third and no outs, but they got no further. Ortiz struck out Fred McGriff and Randy Winn, and Aubrey Huff flied to center.

"We didn't do a good job of putting the ball in play," McRae said. "We could have scored two runs by hitting ground balls or hitting sac flies, but we didn't do either."

Chris Gomez, who had hit one home run in his previous 149 games before joining the Rays, hit his second in three nights to open the seventh against Anaheim reliever Shigetoshi Hasegawa.

And it took a spectacular diving catch by Erstad in left-center to rob Grieve of what would have been a double to open the eighth.

Wallace, as it turned out, pitched extremely well. He allowed just two hits in the 62/3 shutout innings, walked three and struck out four.

"He continues to get them out," McRae said.

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