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Rays commit 4 errors, falter in clutch to waste solid Paul Wilson outing.
By MARC TOPKIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 27, 2001
NEW YORK -- The atmosphere was back to normal at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. So, too, was the baseball.
The Rays, as they tend to do against the top teams, played competitively for a while. But then they got careless and they got sloppy and they lost 5-1 to the AL East champion Yankees.
"You can't give a team more than three outs in an inning, and we gave them four or five," Brent Abernathy said. "You can't expect to win a game like that, especially not against a team of this caliber."
The mistakes Wednesday, including four errors, seemed to come in bunches.
In the second inning, rightfielder Jose Guillen and starter Paul Wilson made careless errors on back-to-back plays, leading to a run.
And with the Rays hanging close at 3-1 in the eighth, shortstop Felix Martinez bounced a throw in the dirt and second baseman Abernathy booted the next ground ball, leading to two New York runs when Shane Spencer ripped Travis Phelps' first pitch for a bases-loaded double.
"First-place teams don't need any help," Wilson said.
The Rays concluded an emotional road trip with a 4-4 record -- just their second nonlosing journey of the season -- and headed home for their first game at Tropicana Field since Sept. 2.
But they left the road with a 25-56 record, the worst in the majors since the 1989 Tigers were 21-60.
Wilson pitched relatively well, extending what has been an impressive second-half run, allowing three runs (two earned) on six hits over seven innings. After starting the season 2-7 with an 8.43 ERA and spending two months in the bullpen, Wilson is 5-2 with a 3.00 ERA over 10 starts.
Aside from a homer he allowed to Spencer leading off the fourth, he was relatively pleased with his pitches and more perturbed with his careless fielding play.
"I was able to keep rolling along with what I've been doing," Wilson said.
Rays pitchers were on a streak of 21 scoreless innings until the sloppy second.
The Yankees had Bernie Williams on second and Tino Martinez on first when Scott Brosius singled hard to right. Williams scored, and Guillen's throw home went over catcher Toby Hall's head, allowing Martinez to go to third and Brosius to second.
Todd Greene then hit a dribbler in front of the plate. Wilson, too worried with how he was going to field it and what he was going to do with it, couldn't make any play, allowing Martinez to score.
"All I had to do was pick it up and I couldn't do it," he said.
Yankees starter Andy Pettitte left the game in the first after being struck on the left elbow by Ben Grieve's line drive, sustaining a bruise that is likely to keep him from his next start.
The Rays had a prime opportunity against replacement Ted Lilly in the third, with Abernathy on third and Grieve on second after a pair of singles and a double steal. But Hall popped to third, and Williams made a spectacular diving catch of Steve Cox's sinking line drive in shallow centerfield.
"We played a sloppy game defensively, but I don't think that's why we lost," manager Hal McRae said. "I think out inability to get a big hit early probably hurt us."