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Crawford propels Rays to rout of Marlins

Jun 26, 2008 - 3:31 AM By Christopher Stock PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

MIAMI (Ticker) -- Carl Crawford hit two home runs and drove in a career-high five runs as the Tampa Bay Rays continued their success against their cross-state rivals with a 15-3 victory over the Florida Marlins on Wednesday.

Evan Longoria hit a two-run homer and drove in a run with a base hit during the fifth inning as the Rays scored 10 times in the inning. The first nine batters all reached base and scored as the Rays sent 14 batters to plate.

"It was nice to watch, I'll tell you that," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "We needed to do that. Hopefully that will give us confidence."

James Shields (5-5) pitched seven innings allowing one run and four hits, while striking out five for the Rays, who have won four of five against the Marlins this season during interleague play.

"I thought I pitched well," Shields said. "When you score 15 runs in a game, it's a lot easier to pitch that way,"

Crawford hit a 421-foot three-run homer in the third inning and added a 429-foot solo blast in the fifth to give him seven homers on the season. It was the fourth multi-homer game in his career and his first since June 30, 2006.

"I was just looking for something over the plate that I could drive," Crawford said. "I got the count in my favor both times. I got good wood to them."

The Rays led 4-0 heading into the pivotal fifth inning. Crawford led off with a homer, and three batters later, Longoria followed with his two-run shot giving the Rays a commanding 8-0 advantage. The Marlins were unable to get out of the inning as the next five batters reached base, including an RBI double by Akinori Iwamura.

Crawford came up again in the inning and grounded out driving in a run for the first out of the inning. B.J. Upton followed with an RBI single and Longoria also drove in a run with a single. Dioner Navarro struck out to end the inning falling a run short of tying the franchise record of 11 runs in an inning.

"That was a big inning for us," Crawford said. "It was fun to do and guys weren't giving up their at-bats. It was just nice to see everybody get in on the action like that."

Ben Zobrist hit his first home run of the season in the eighth inning to cap off the scoring for the Rays.

"Everybody has been saying that we have not been swinging our bats up to our potential, so hopefully this will be the start of us doing that," Crawford said.

Ryan Tucker (2-2) pitched four innings and surrendered seven runs and eight hits in his fourth career start. Eulogio De La Cruz gave up six runs -- five earned -- in the fifth inning without recording an out.

Mike Jacobs hit his 18th homer of the season for the Marlins.

"It just wasn't a good day for the Fish," Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "We could go on and on for two hours and talk about every pitcher or play, but we're not going to do that."