Inventing new ways to lose

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are no strangers to losing, but this weekend in St. Petersburg, there were two innings that were the difference between a three game sweep of the Cleveland Indians, and losing the series 1-2. Which translates to the difference between being 9-9 with a half game lead over the Yankees who come into town today for a quick two game series, and sitting at the bottom of the AL East, and dangerously close to the bottom of the league at 7-11. These losses are hard enough to take for the young Rays team, but knowing that they were lost on managerial mistakes, makes it harder to take for the fans.

James Shields, and up and coming right handed pitcher for the D-Rays pitched an outstanding game. He struck out 12 batters through 8 innings of work, a 12 k outing that fans in Tampa Bay have only seen once before, when Dan Wheeler struck out 12 in a game in 1999. The Rays had just taken a 4-2 lead, in an exciting eighth. After Akinori Iwamura and Dionner Navarro got on base to start the inning, B.J. Upton, singled up the middle to score Iwamura, and later in the inning Navarro scored on a wild pitch. So with the momentum in their favor, Rays manager Joe Maddon, elected to pull Shields, in favor of Brian Stokes to face the Indians in the 9th. Shields had only allowed two hits, one of them a two run homerun by Indians Jhonny Peralta in the second inning, when he exited the game, so it seemed odd that Maddon was pulling the starter after such a dominant performance. What seemed even more odd, was why Maddon didn't bring in the closer Al Reyes again. In thursday night's game vs. the Indians, the game was tied when Maddon, elected to leave in reliever Juan Salas who had pitched the inning before, as opposed to the closer Reyes, and Salas put the first two batters on base before he was pulled. A batter later, the Indians would score the go ahead run to win. So why with a two run lead in an obvious save situation Maddon would keep Reyes in the pen and bring in the often times shaky reliever Stokes was beyond me. Stokes, who has lasted longer than an inning in 8 other appearances this season, allowed multiple hits in all but three of those appearances and allowed runs in half of them. With the series on the line, this was definitely no time to give Brian Stokes a chance. Stokes wasted it, by allowing a RBI hit and a walk before serving up a three run home run to Indians 1B Ryan Garko. So in 1/3 of an inning, Stokes allowed 4 runs, and destroyed a career performance by James Shields. It was a tough loss to watch, but it's got to be more tough to experience. Stokes (pictured at the top) was very distraught after the game, but you have to feel bad for the guy considering he had no business being put in the game with that much pressure in the first place.

Joe Maddon made a terrible mistake. One that Lou Pinella would have never made. I doubt Hal McRae would have made that mistake, and i'm almost willing to say Larry Rothschild would have been smart enough to bring in Reyes. It was almost excusable for the former Rays managers to lose, considering the lack of depth they were forced to put out on the field day after day. But when you have a bunch of hot players, and pitchers throwing gems, and you still can't manage to pull out a win, there's definitely something wrong. One things for sure, I'm sure the fans would love to see the Devil Rays come into a home series against the Yankees with a better record, and I'm sure the players would play with a much higher level of confidence if they had a game or two on them. Unfortunately we won't know what thats like today, or tomorrow, and as sad as it is to say, I don't believe we will get that chance as long as Maddon is the manager of the ball club.