By Marc Topkin, Times Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2011
ST. PETERSBURG — The long Thursday in Minnesota and early Friday morning arrival home seemed to take its toll on the Rays who looked sloppy, tired and irritable at times in a 8-5 loss to the Angels.
But ace starter David Price, who flew home Thursday afternoon, didn't have that excuse for his poor performance, allowing a career-high 12 hits while failing to get through the fifth inning.
"That," Price said, "was pretty brutal on my part."
The loss, before a spirited Tropicana Field crowd of 21,791, snapped the Rays' recent run of success, a five-game winning streak and a six-game stretch of scoring first, and dropped their record to 14-12.
It also marked the end of Johnny Damon's hitting streak at 16 games, and extended the slump of suddenly not-so-super Sam Fuld, who is now hitless over a career-high 14 at-bats.
Matt Joyce, whose hot bat has been a key part of the Rays' recent success, lost his cool, for a choice word or two, anyway, after being called out on strikes in the sixth and was ejected by home plate umpire Tom Hallion. B.J. Upton, who homered in the eighth, also had issues with Hallion earlier in the game.
"I kind of over-reacted," said Joyce, who had never been tossed. "That's the way it goes sometime. Those borderline pitches are tough. … You just get in the heat of the battle and sometimes that just happens. … I guess he just had enough of people saying stuff."
The Rays weren't as crisp as usual defensively, failing to make some plays and messing up some others, with third baseman Felipe Lopez among the most guilty. Rays pitchers allowed a season-high 17 hits total. And they managed only seven hits of their own facing an Angels starter, Ervin Santana, who had no wins and a 5.51 ERA.
Manager Joe Maddon, though, said given the circumstances he was pleased with their effort, including a brief rally in the ninth that took a running catch by Angels leftfielder Vernon Wells to quell.
"I liked the way we kept battling," he said. "My God, we got in at 4 in the morning, the guys went out there and we played a really good game. We hit a lot of balls hard that were outs because (the Angels) did play such good defense."
What they didn't expect was such a poor outing from Price (3-3, 3.95 ERA), especially after Joyce's three-run homer in the third, his first of the season ending a career-long 90 at-bat drought, gave them a 4-1 lead.
"Normally when he's on top of this game that should have been a pretty good night for us," Maddon said. "You won't see David with that kind of performance very often."
Said Price: "As well as we've been playing, for them to give me four runs in the first three innings and I gave that up, plus one more, that's probably the most frustrating part."
The 4 1/3-inning outing was Price's shortest since July 2009, as he allowed hits to 12 of the 24 batters he faced ("a little absurd"), threw a wild pitch and made a throwing error on one of those pickoff plays at second the Rays are trying with increased frequency.
The big blow was a two-run homer by first baseman Mark Trumbo in the fourth as the Angels tied the score, and built their lead from there.
Price said there was no one problem, that he simply didn't have it. "They just beat me all around," he said. "And that stinks."
