TB notes.....

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Call-up baffles Rays hitters in his debut
A'S 6, RAYS 0: Tampa Bay can't solve young starter Aaron Harang.
By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer

? St. Petersburg Times
published May 26, 2002


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They hardly could do anything against the 24-year-old making his big-league debut, finishing the afternoon with three hits, a season-high 13 strikeouts and a 6-0 loss that was among their most feeble performances of the season.

About the only thing left was to enjoy a night in San Francisco and hope a better day was ahead, knowing a win today over A's ace Barry Zito would allow them to finish their hazardous 13-day cross-country journey to New York, Baltimore, Seattle and Oakland with a 6-6 record.

"If we win (today) it will be a good road trip," manager Hal McRae said. "Any time you play .500 on the road it's a good trip, especially against the clubs we played. And if you could have guaranteed me .500 before we left, I'd say, "Yes, I'd take it.' .500 would be a good trip."

"If we can go .500 I think we can go back to Tampa with some confidence and something to build on," second baseman Brent Abernathy said. "It's definitely not going to be easy facing Zito, but it doesn't matter who's going to be on the mound. We've got to put up some runs for our pitchers."

That certainly would be a good place to start.

Saturday, they managed three singles in seven innings against Harang, a 1999 sixth-round pick who made a Joe Kennedy-like rise from Double A to Triple A to the majors in the past six weeks.

They got one runner as far as second and, aside from the singles, hit only four balls out of the infield, striking out 10 times.

It was the sixth time the Rays were shut out this season, matching Kansas City for the American League high, and the sixth time they were held to three hits or fewer.

"We didn't generate any offense whatsoever," McRae said. "The offense has struggled all year. Really, it's been a two-year struggle."

And that's just the part he has seen.

Harang, a 6-foot-7, 245-pounder, had a lot to do with it Saturday. He threw hard, regularly in the low 90s and as fast as 95 on occasion, and routinely threw the ball high and across the plate.

"He was very, very sneaky with his fastball," Abernathy said. "We noticed that in the first inning, the three of us that hit came back saying how quickly the ball got on top of you.

"I'm sure that had a lot to do with how big he is and also that he throws from right around the shoulder. That was one of the reasons we were swinging at so many high fastballs out of the zone. You think you'd see it good and by the time you got the bat head through the zone it's already past you."

Said Steve Cox: "It was kind of tough to lay off and kind of tough to hit."

The Rays didn't have a scouting report or video on Harang, but it didn't take long to figure out what he was doing. It was their inability to adjust to it, to force Harang to come down in the zone by taking the high pitches, that cost them.

McRae, though, said he didn't consider it a poor effort by his hitters but more of an extraordinary performance by Harang. "I've seen guys pitch like that before," McRae said. "Jim Palmer was a guy, Denny McLain, Gary Nolan. That's the way they pitched, just above the zone."

Travis Harper kept the Rays in the game, though the two-run homer he allowed to Jermaine Dye on a hanging curve put them behind in the second. A misplay by Randy Winn cost them a run in the fourth, but it was within reach until Jorge Sosa's rough eighth inning doubled the margin to 6-0.

It doesn't sound good for the Rays today since they've lost their past six to the A's and 18 of 23 at the Network Associates Coliseum, and are winless in two starts against Zito.

But they have Kennedy, coming off his complete-game masterpiece, on the mound.

"We've got to put up some runs," Abernathy said. "We aren't swinging the bats real well right now and it's been a long couple of weeks, so the key for us is to come out, and I know we're facing tough pitching, but come out just swinging and try to put up some runs."

"We've had a pretty decent road trip, and it would be nice to go home on a win," Cox said. "It's a long flight, even longer when you lose."

 

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TODAY: RAYS AT A'S

WHEN/WHERE: 4:05; Network Associates Coliseum, Oakland, Calif.

PITCHERS: Rays -- LHP Joe Kennedy (3-3, 3.41); A's -- LHP Barry Zito (4-2, 3.92)

TV/RADIO: Ch. 32; WFLA-AM 970.

WORTH NOTING: Kennedy made back-to-back starts against the A's in September with no decisions and a 3.00 ERA. ... Zito is 11-0 with a 2.60 ERA in his past 18 home starts. ... He is 2-0 with a 1.90 ERA against the Rays.

INFORMATION: Call toll-free 1-888-FAN-RAYS.

RAYS BY THE NUMBERS
HOME/ROAD: 9-13/7-18

DAY/NIGHT: 6-9/10-22

GRASS/TURF: 7-13/9-18

VS. EAST: 8-21

VS. CENTRAL: 6-7

VS. WEST: 2-3

VS. NL: 0-0

VS. RH/LH STARTERS: 14-26/2-5

AHEAD AFTER 6/7/8: 9-6/10-5/12-4

BEHIND AFTER 6/7/8: 3-21/2-25/1-25

TIED AFTER 6/7/8: 4-4/4-1/3-2

ONE-RUN/TWO-RUN GAMES: 7-8/3-7

EXTRA INNINGS: 2-2

LAST AT-BAT WINS: 6

COME-FROM-BEHIND WINS: 9

COME-FROM-AHEAD LOSSES: 17

MAKING ERROR: 8-18

HITTING HOMER: 8-15

HITTING HOMERS: 4-3

SCORING FIRST: 9-8

SCORING 4 OR MORE: 11-8

SCORING FEWER THAN 4: 6-22

OUTHITTING OPPONENTS: 9-2

BEING OUTHIT: 1-24

GETTING 10 OR MORE HITS: 10-7

GIVING UP 10 OR MORE HITS: 7-20

ATTENDANCE REPORT
HOME DATES: 22

HOME TOTAL: 304,614

HOME AVERAGE: 13,846

2001 AVERAGE: 16,029

LARGEST: 38,142 vs. Tigers, April 2

SMALLEST: 10,264 vs. Orioles, May 12

TEAM LEADERS
(through Friday)

TYING/GO-AHEAD RBIs: Grieve, Winn 7; Cox 6; Abernathy, Gomez, Johnson, Tyner, Vaughn 5.

INFIELD HITS: Tyner, Winn 9.

BUNT HITS: Tyner 5; Winn 2

OUTFIELD ASSISTS: Winn 6; Grieve 4.

CATCHERS EFFICIENCY: Hall 8-23, .348; Flaherty 0-12, .000.

 

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Harper does his part as a starter
By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer
? St. Petersburg Times
published May 26, 2002


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OAKLAND, Calif. -- Travis Harper was the only Ray who earned a gold star Saturday.

While the batters were flailing at Oakland rookie Aaron Harang's pitches, and reliever Jorge Sosa let the game get out of hand, Harper turned in another solid start, allowing five hits and three runs over six innings.

"Harper did a good job, a real good job," manager Hal McRae. "He only gave up three, and legitimately only two, so we were in the ballgame. So he did his job. He pitched six innings and left with us trailing by three, which is a good outing."

He made only one mistake, hanging a curveball that Jermaine Dye turned into a two-run homer. The third run scored when Randy Winn misplayed a fly ball.

In six outings (including three starts), Harper is 1-2 with a 3.27 ERA, allowing 18 hits and eight earned runs in 22 innings. He likely is headed back to the bullpen if Wilson Alvarez comes off the disabled list this week as expected.

"You just want to go out, put some zeros up, get deep in the game and give your team a chance to win, and I feel like I've been doing that," Harper said.

WELL-ARMED: The Rays still were trying to figure out how a fan got a small octopus into the Coliseum on Friday night, and how it got into the middle of rightfield.

"It looked pretty darn big," Rays second baseman Brent Abernathy said. "I don't know how they got it where they did out on the field. I asked the first-base umpire what it was, and he said, "I don't know, there's no telling here what it is.' I think we were all kind of thinking it could have been something a little bit worse than an octopus."

Stadium groundskeeper David Maderios wasn't sure either, but said there was no doubt once he got closer. "It stunk," Maderios said. "It was bad. You should have seen the guys in the dugout when we brought it by."

The octopus-flinging fan was detained in a stadium holding cell and released. "He had a bologna sandwich in jail and we had calamari," Maderios said.

LATE-NIGHT REWARD: After watching for six games, rookie reliever Lee Gardner finally got to pitch Friday. And that meant his parents and other relatives in Michigan got to go to sleep.

With the Rays on the West Coast, the Gardners have been staying up to track their son's major-league debut. But the satellite dish they ordered hadn't been hooked up, so they were left to "watch" the game via pitch-by-pitch updates on the Internet.

"They've been walking around with bags under their eyes for the last week," Gardner said. "When I got taken out of the game they called and left me a message and said "Good job' and went back to bed."

MEDICAL REPORT: Abernathy said his left wrist, bruised when he dived on it making a play Friday, was sore but tolerable. "I've had a lot of problems with it in the past, and I've played through a lot worse with it," he said. . . . The bruise on Ben Grieve's left thumb is getting better but McRae said he doesn't know when Grieve, out the past four games, will return to the lineup. "I hope he feels good enough to play on Tuesday," McRae said.

MISCELLANY: Alvarez made what is expected to be his final minor-league rehabilitation start Saturday, allowing four hits and one run over five innings for Double-A Orlando. . . . The Rays are 11-30 against the A's, their worst record against any AL opponent. They are 18-46 against the Yankees. . . . The A's have won two straight for the first time since late April.

 

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Rays tales
By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer
? St. Petersburg Times
published May 26, 2002


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A DIFFERENT VIEW: Spending a lot of his free time on the road in his hotel room, manager Hal McRae has developed something of a guilty pleasure: watching The View, the topical talk show featuring an all-women panel of Barbara Walters, Star Jones, Meredith Vieira, Lisa Ling and Joy Behar.

"There's nothing on TV to watch," McRae said. "You watch SportsCenter, but you can only watch that three or four times. Then you watch CNN and all they talk about is fighting. So I watch them because at least they change the subject and you laugh a little bit and they have interesting people on. I kinda like it."

HOOP DREAMS: With the Dallas Mavericks and dual supporters Ben Grieve and Randy Winn out of the way, the fiercest rivalry in the Rays clubhouse is between Sacramento Kings season-ticket holder Greg Vaughn and Los Angeles Lakers backer Chris Gomez.

Vaughn has had Kings tickets for nearly a dozen years, "back to when they were winning 15-20 games a year. I've taken a lot of heat for being a Kings fan."

Gomez, who grew up in suburban L.A., is a fan of all his hometown teams: "The only true fans."

When Vaughn went to Monday's game, he brought back a souvenir -- a small towel printed in Kings purple with the words Beat L.A. that he eventually pinned above Gomez's locker. "He was waving that thing like a little girl," Gomez said.

As for any bets they might have on the series? "This," Gomez said, "goes beyond money."

FROM THE HOME OFFICE: The Rays have become such regulars on David Letterman's Late Show Top 10 list that they soon just might have a list all their own. Here are the latest two mentions from the late-night wise guy:

Of the May 16 Top 10 Signs You're Dumb, No. 2 was "You're a Tampa Bay Devil Rays season-ticket holder." (At least the Rays were in good company since No. 1 was "You Choke on a Pretzel.")

And of the May 22 Top 10 Least Impressive David Blaine tricks, No. 10 was "Sitting through a Tampa Bay Devil Rays doubleheader."

EXCERPTED
From Art Thiel's column Friday in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The Mariners finally beat dreaded, formidable and seemingly invincible Tampa Bay, ending a four-game losing steak as well as muscle tension in the region that threatened to snap bones."

ONLINE ITEM OF THE WEEK
A 5-inch long Ox Spoon Rays fishing lure had a high bid of $4.95 on eBay Saturday morning.

KENT'S CORNER
An occasional update from 23-year-old rookie pitcher Steve Kent on his first tour of the major leagues:

Pitching against the Mariners, whom he played for in the minor leagues, and pitching in Seattle, where he'd hoped to get to, was something of a thrill.

"Fun stuff," Kent said.

Pitching against Ichiro Suzuki, however, was akin to renewing an old acquaintance. Kent met Ichiro when he went to Japan a few years ago with a team of Mariners minor-leaguers. "He was hurt then and he was hanging out where we were staying," Kent said. "I have an Ichiro shirt from Japan. It's like my favorite shirt."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"He had my season so far in one day."

-- GREG VAUGHN, on Dodgers outfielder Shawn Green's four-homer, six-hit, 19-total-base day

 

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Time to make hard decisions draws near
By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer

? St. Petersburg Times
published May 26, 2002


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OAKLAND, Calif. -- General manager Chuck LaMar has a lot to do. He has the draft coming up and he has to soon address which of the veterans in line for hefty raises, such as Paul Wilson, Tanyon Sturtze, Randy Winn and Esteban Yan, should be kept or traded by the July 31 deadline.

But before that he is going to have to decide what to do with some of the Rays' slumping "sophomores" -- the younger players who made good impressions last year but are not performing anywhere near that level.

Outfielder Jason Tyner, catcher Toby Hall and reliever Victor Zambrano are of prime concern.

"I think in the month of June we may have to make some critical decisions on some of our young players, and that's not just on who may be sent down but who may be called up," LaMar said.

"It will be the decisionmaking time for some of these young players, those in Double A and Triple A, and those here in the major leagues.

LaMar said the decisions will be made on what's best for the individual player, that the moment it appears his long-term development is better served by the less-pressurized environment of the minors, he will be sent down, not as punishment or banishment, but for a chance to get things right. That was precisely why Jesus Colome, whom the Rays still consider a prized prospect, was demoted.

He also said the decision won't be based on whom the Rays have available to take their place. That seems to be a way of suggesting Hall shouldn't think he is less likely to be sent down than Tyner because the Rays don't have a top catching prospect but do have promising outfielder Carl Crawford in Triple A.

Basically, LaMar said the struggling players have to play better or at least look like they are trying to get better.

"There's no carte blanche here," LaMar said. "I have no qualms about sending them a message that this is not a free ride. Just because you had some early success at the major-league level or just because certain publications or media says you're going to be a good player, no, this is still the major leagues. You either have to be performing at the major-league level or developing to perform at the major-league level. If you don't have one of those two, it's time to go back to Triple A.

"Obviously there are players who are not performing at the major-league level. So now the question to (manager Hal McRae) and I is, are they still developing during these struggles? And if the answer is no, then you're paying a player and he's getting service time in the major leagues, yet he's not performing or developing his skills to perform, then you've crossed the line of just giving a player a job because he's a young player."

CASH CALL: Recent comments in the Washington Post from Fay Vincent, whose commissionership was ended in 1992 by the Bud Selig movement, indicate the Rays may have been in worse financial shape than known.

"I think Bud bailed out Tampa Bay and Phoenix (from bankruptcy) after the World Series last year," Vincent said.

Rays vice president/general counsel John Higgins said Friday that was not the case.

"That statement is incorrect," Higgins said.

DRAFT BREEZE: Baseball America's latest mock draft has Pittsburgh making Ball State right-hander Bryan Bullington the top pick on June 4 with the Rays taking athletic Virginia prep shortstop B.J. Upton second, which would be fine with them.

But until the Rays know what the Pirates will do, they also are looking at hot-hitting Georgia prep outfielder Jeremy Hermida (whose father, Larry, grew up in Tampa and played at Hillsborough High in the '70s), left-handed pitchers Scott Kazmir of Houston, and Adam Loewen of Canada, and Bullington.

CURRENT EVENTS: Amid the discussion emanating from New York, McRae said he thought an openly gay player would fit in the clubhouse "if he could play."

"If he was a good player, I don't think you would worry about it," McRae said.

HOO-RAYS: The Rays' All-Star? If you were picking today, probably Steve Cox. But with a few more wins, maybe Joe Kennedy. ... Pitchers will start taking batting practice Tuesday to prepare for next month's interleague games at Florida, San Francisco and Colorado. ... Seattle manager Lou Piniella said Kennedy's complete game was "as good a game that I've seen pitched against us."