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Losing streak reaches eight

Devil Rays scramble to tie the Mariners, but succumb in the ninth for 4-3 loss and a season-high skid.

By MARC TOPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 19, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Steve Cox stood helplessly in leftfield, arms extended, eyes looking skyward for help.

It could be a metaphor for the Devil Rays' season, one in which everything that was supposed to go right went wrong and their whole world seemed upside down.

At the least, it was the lasting image from Monday's game, which proved that what goes up doesn't always come down.

In this case it was a seemingly routine fly ball by Seattle's Jay Buhner that stuck in one of the Tropicana Field catwalks, leading to a ninth-inning run and a 4-3 victory that extended the Devil Rays' season-high losing streak to eight games.

"It's kinda tough," Rays closer Roberto Hernandez said. "You finally get in a game where you're not getting blown out and the team's playing hard and battling, but every little thing that can go wrong is going to go wrong right now."

The Rays fell behind 3-0 early, battled back to tie, then lost for the 14th time in 16 September games in front of what was maybe half the announced crowd of 13,129.

After Buhner's catwalk double, Hernandez walked Carlos Guillen, with pinch-runner Charles Gipson moving to third when ball four sailed to the backstop as a wild pitch. Pinch-hitter Stan Javier then delivered the winner, a double past diving third baseman Aubrey Huff.

"I think it was a pretty good pitch," Javier said. "I just got lucky. I never thought I would hit that pitch. Nine times out of 10 you foul it off."

The way things are going for the Rays, the odds were probably with the Mariners, who are the league's worst pinch-hitting team.

Neither the Rays nor the Mariners thought Buhner's ball would have been out of the park. It struck the B-ring catwalk (second highest from the top), which is about 150 feet above the field. Had the ball come down, it would have been in play -- and an out had Cox caught it on the fly.

"I ran to where I thought it was going to land and the next thing I know I lost it and didn't know where it was," Cox said. "I was like, "Where did it go?' Then I ran in because I saw it stuck up there and it was just kind of rolling and then it went to the edge and I couldn't see it anymore."

Buhner compared the hit to a golf shot, proper backspin and all. "I hit it up there, it spun up nicely and stayed, so great," he said.

Actually, he wasn't sure what the end result would be.

"I saw it go up and I saw his reaction when he stuck his hands out and I just kept running," Buhner said. "I figured I'd keep running until something happened. After about 10 seconds I figured it was stuck up there, but you can't take anything for granted in this place, you just run. It was a strange deal."

"A catwalk win," Seattle manager Lou Piniella said.

The Rays complained about feeling equally cheated in the bottom of the ninth, when pinch-hitter Vinny Castilla's apparent one-out double down the rightfield line was ruled foul by first-base umpire Mike Fichter.

"I thought it was fair when I hit it, and on the replay I thought it was fair," Castilla said.

Manager Larry Rothschild argued to no avail, and Jose Paniagua, once a Tampa Bay expansion draft pick, got the final two outs for the Mariners.

"You just expect a lot of things to go wrong and to not go your way, especially the way we've been playing," Hernandez said.

Bryan Rekar started strong but had trouble in the middle innings and came out of the game with the score tied at 3 in the seventh, bothered by tightness in his pectoral muscle and a blister on his right hand. It was his 11th winless outing in 14 second-half starts.

The Rays got a home run from Greg Vaughn, who has hit six of their last 12; a run-scoring single from Huff; and a run-scoring double by Mike DiFelice, his first RBI since Sept. 2. But it was getting nothing after loading the bases with one out in the fourth that may have hurt them the most.

The Mariners, trying to protect their lead in the West, have won six in a row.

The Rays, meanwhile, are 61-88 and trying to avoid having the worst record in the majors.

During the eight-game losing streak, the Rays have been outscored 65-15, hit .173 and posted an ERA of 8.33.

"It's like, what do you do?" Cox said. "What do you do? Keep battling."

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