John Smallwood: Rays breathe sigh of relief as rain extends Game 5 another day
THE TAMPA RAYS don't know for sure, but because of what they believed would happen, they exhaled mightily when last night's Game 5 of the World Series was suspended with the score 2-2.
THE TAMPA RAYS don't know for sure, but because of what they believed would happen, they exhaled mightily when last night's Game 5 of the World Series was suspended with the score 2-2.
"What we heard was that if we would not have tied the score, we would've lost," Rays leftfielder Carl Crawford said. "Now somebody just said that was not true, but we didn't know that at the time."
At the time, all they knew was that Carlos Pena had driven in B.J. Upton in the top of a soggy sixth inning to knot the game, and then, a few minutes later, Major League Baseball suspended the World Series until weather conditions in Philadelphia make it possible to play again - but not before 8 tonight.
Hey, Fox paid a lot of money to broadcast this in prime time.
"This is interesting," Rays reliever J.P. Howell said of the continually deteriorating conditions the teams slogged through. "It's just one more mental test for us to battle through. That's why
we're both here, because we are mentally strong teams.
"It's another day to play ball, which is great for us, because we were facing elimination. We're excited to come back tomorrow."
Commissioner Bud Selig said he would not have let the deciding game of a World Series end without a full nine innings being played, so the Phillies were never going to have a parade based on a rain-shortened concluding game.
The Rays can thank Pena, who had come into Game 5 0-for-13 in the World Series, for eliminating that as even a notion.
After Upton hit an infield single in the sixth off Phillies starter Cole Hamels and stole second,
Pena laced a single to leftfield that scored the speedy Upton.
Pena also played a role in the Rays' first run when he doubled off Hamels with one out in the fourth.
Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, who had been hitless in his first 18 World Series at-bats, singled to center to score Pena.
Back-to-back hits from Pena and Longoria, after they had entered the game a combined 0-for-31, made manager Joe Maddon look smart for adjusting his batting order. Really, Maddon had no choice, because Pena and Longoria had been killing the Rays. Not only had they been hitless, they had combined for 16 strikeouts.
With Tampa Bay trailing the Series, three games to one, and facing Hamels, a change obviously had to be made. It was just a matter of what.
Maddon moved Crawford up to the second spot in the batting order, and dropping Upton to third, Pena to fourth and Longoria to fifth.
"It's bumping [Crawford] up, as much as anything," Maddon said before the game. "I wanted to get Carl up there. He's been successful two-place hitter for us.
"And I wanted to unfreeze those two guys a little bit. The fact [was], that [Pena and Longoria] had a little bit of problems in their normal slots for both of them.
"I thought just by giving them a little different perspective today may help."
It worked to the Rays' advantage, and on a rain-soaked field that finally became unplayable, Pena helped extend the Rays' World Series.
"The infield wasn't that bad, it was just the visibility," Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett said. "A lot of guys couldn't believe we were still playing. That's how bad it was. A lot of guys said if we didn't tie, we would have lost, which is amazing, considering this is the World Series."
That would not have happened, but the Rays didn't know that. *
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