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Brace yourself: Rays sweep

Tampa Bay takes four from the formerly first-place Twins, its best winning streak this season.

By MARC TOPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 14, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- The shockwaves will ripple from here to Minneapolis and around the baseball world. The experts on ESPN are going to talk about it. The headlines will be in big type. Truth be told, even their manager acknowledged that it was "sort of unbelievable."

So maybe the only people who aren't amazed that the last-place Rays swept a four-game series from the previously first-place Twins are the Rays themselves.

"It's a great feeling because of the chemistry on this team and the way we're kind of coming together as a family," Damian Rolls said after Monday's 5-1 matinee win that sealed the deal.

"When you can sweep somebody like the Twins, they've been battling of late, but all season they've just been ripping people apart. When you can take a series from them, especially a sweep, that just shows you're moving in the right direction in all aspects of the game."

According to Rolls, the Rays knew Friday the possibility for a sweep existed.

"After the first game I think everyone in this clubhouse was saying to ourselves, "We can sweep them.' After the first game. I want to say maybe after the first two innings of the first game ... " he said.

[Times photo: Michael Rondou] Rays rightfielder Randy Winn leaps but just misses Chad Allen's drive to the wall in the first inning.

Why?

"The energy of our team and looking at the energy of their team," he said. "They come out and they're torturing people all season long, but I just kind of looked at the energy of our team. You're seeing our team starting to jell instead of playing a little erratic. ... With the energy in the dugout you just kind of get that feeling that we can beat anybody if we just pull together."

The Rays clearly have come together, beating the Twins before an announced Tropicana Field crowd of 10,841 the way they did the previous three days: with strong starting pitching, timely hitting, some dazzling defense and, just to keep it exciting, a bit of unsettling relief work.

It is their first four-game winning streak of the season and the first time a last-place team swept a four-game set from a division leader in more than seven years.

"We're all nice and relaxed and playing how we're supposed to play," catcher Toby Hall said. "We're swinging the bat, making good pitches, good plays, hustling, diving, chasing down balls. It's a good feeling, and everyone knows that. It's nice."

Manager Hal McRae has made a point of crediting the turnaround to the infusion of young players, but it is becoming clear that he also considers the departure of the veterans to be equally significant.

"We brought a lot of young guys in and they changed the environment," McRae said. "They're a little naive, and that's good. That's the beauty of the game. They start clean. There was a lot of residue with the older players."

The kids were having fun all over the place Monday.

Nick Bierbrodt, the 23-year-old lefty acquired last month from Arizona, made his first AL win a good one, allowing two hits over seven shutout innings and retiring his final 10 hitters.

"A brilliant game," McRae said.

Not bad for a guy who said he didn't have "anything" in the way of pitches and had all kinds of trouble adjusting to the sleep-depriving 12:15 p.m. start time.

"I was dragging physically and I wasn't crisp, and then about the third or fourth inning I woke up or whatever and started to pitch better," Bierbrodt said.

Offense came from throughout the lineup, with five players driving in a run. Rolls had a career-high four singles, Ben Grieve had his ninth home run and Aubrey Huff contributed another key hit.

Rolls also was the defensive star, making a long run to haul in Doug Mientkiewicz's hefty eighth-inning drive just shy of the right-centerfield wall.

"When it came off the bat I didn't think I had a chance in the world," Rolls said. "I said to myself, "Get to the ball as fast as you can get there and get it back in.' I threw my head down and started running and when I looked up it almost hit me in the face."

The Rays took a 5-0 lead into the eighth, though Travis Phelps and Doug Creek both created a cause for concern. Jesus Colome ended up getting the final two outs.

McRae said any four-game sweep is hard. But this was even better.

"Four is a lot of games to beat anyone," he said, "and a good team, like Minnesota, they're only one and a half games out of first place."

Mound dominance

The Rays' young starting rotation was the star of the four-game weekend sweep of the Twins, compiling an overall 1.40 ERA against the former AL Central leaders. The numbers:

(Pitcher,Date,IP,H,R,ER,BB,SO)

Wilson,8/10, 6,4, 0, 0, 1,7

Rupe,8/11, 6,5, 2, 2,1, 5

Sturtze,8/12, 62/3, 4, 2, 2, 2,5

Bierbrodt, 8/13, 7,2, 0, 0, 3,7

Totals, -,252/3,15,4, 4, 7, 24

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