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Longoria, Shields lead Rays over Yankees in first game of DH

Sep 13, 2008 - 9:44 PM By Larry Fleisher PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- Evan Longoria waited over a month to contribute to the Tampa Bay Rays' playoff push. For James Shields, his wait to finally beat the New York Yankees was somewhat longer.

Longoria had a two-run single in his return from the disabled list and Shields threw eight scoreless innings as Tampa Bay opened a day-night doubleheader with a 7-1 rout of New York on Saturday afternoon.

Longoria saw his first action since fracturing his right wrist when he was hit by a pitch from Seattle closer J.J. Putz on August 7. That injury cost him 24 games but he had not been able to get into a game until Saturday.

The All-Star third baseman looked sharp in his return as he singled to left field in the second inning and scored on rookie Justin Ruggiano's two-run double. He also chipped in with a two-run single during a three-run fifth that sealed the win.

"I felt good," Longoria said. "My timing is obviously a little off. There was a couple of at-bats where maybe if I'm right I might hit the ball a little harder or hit it somewhere where they're not. But I can't complain, the first day back I felt as good as I expected."

Besides the hits from Ruggiano and Longoria, Tampa Bay also got an RBI single from Jason Bartlett and scored a run on Ben Zorbrist's sacrifice fly. The Rays scored their final run when Ruggiano came home on first baseman Jason Giambi's throwing error.

Those hits supported a superb effort from Shields (13-8), who had been 0-6 with a 6.86 ERA in seven previous outings against New York. The righthander had allowed 31 earned runs and 55 hits in 40 2/3 innings in those outings but was virtually flawless en route to his career-high 13th victory.

"If you look at the numbers coming into today's game the guys that had a batting average against him, they had some really good numbers," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. "I really liked him attacking the zone with his fastball a lot, getting in good counts and making them swing at his pitches. That's when he's at his best."

Shields also had been 0-3 in four previous starts at Yankee Stadium. One of those defeats had been a 21-4 loss on July 22, 2007 when he was rocked for 10 runs in 3 1/3 innings.

"I think I was executing all my pitches today," Shields said. "My sequences were really good. The way I was approaching each hitter, taking my time out there. I was executing my pitches and it was all working."

Shields allowed just five hits, including three singles to Derek Jeter and a double to Bobby Abreu. He struck out six batters without a walk, throwing 70 of 106 pitches for strikes.

"Shields was very good," Yankees starter Mike Mussina said. "We had a tough time getting anything down."

Shields was slated to start Saturday's regularly scheduled contest and helped Tampa Bay lower its magic number to 14. Matt Garza will oppose Sidney Ponson in the nightcap as the teams make up Friday's scheduled series opener that was postponed by rain.

Longoria will not start the second game but will be available as a pinch hitter.

Besides lowering their magic number for clinching and sending the Yankees closer to elimination, the Rays also put a dent in Mussina's quest for his first 20-win season. They roughed up him for five runs and eight hits over five innings.

Tampa Bay scored twice in the second as Ruggiano lined a double to right field, scoring Longoria and Fernando Perez. That was enough for Shields but the Rays extended the lead to 5-0 in the fifth when Bartlett delivered a run-scoring single to right and Longoria drove in his first runs in over a month with a base hit through the left side of the infield.

"It was a big moment after Rocco (Baldelli) strikes out with the bases loaded and to come through like that (is big)," Maddon said of Longoria's hit in the fifth. "The thing about Evan in observing him is he's got this calmness about him, he's got this confidence about him and he's got a looseness about him, which I liked - especially this time of year."

After getting the bases-loaded single, Longoria also made a key defensive play. He prevented a two-run double down the left field line in the sixth when he dove to snag Xavier Nady's groundball with runners on second and third with two outs.

"It's a big lift," Shields said. "When you get Evan coming back and making that play in an inning when they had second and third and he had a huge two-out knock. It definitely gives us a boost and it's good to have him back."

The Yankees lost for the fifth time in seven games and other than the individual accomplishments by Jeter and Abreu, there were few highlights.

"We gave them extra outs today," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We gave them two or three extra outs and they capitalized on it. When you do that, it's tough on the pitcher."

New York avoided a shutout in the ninth, as Abreu led off the frame with his 17th home run off Trever Miller.

Jeter's three-hit game gave him 1,263 hits at Yankee Stadium, just six shy of Lou Gehrig's record. Mussina (17-9) moved past Cy Young on the all-time strikeouts list and also became the 19th pitcher to reach 2,800 strikeouts.