While the Sox have shrugged aside injury after injury to keep rising in the American League East, the Rays have notably fallen on hard times.
Through four-plus innings of the teams' matchup Tuesday night at Fenway Park, you wouldn't know it. The game was scoreless, John Lackey and James Shields swapping zeros. But one moment ensured that the clubs would stay their respective courses, at least for another night.
After Mike Cameron singled with one out in the bottom of the fifth and Marco Scutaro followed with a double, Shields was met on the mound by manager Joe Maddon and the rest of his teammates in the infield. The conversation could have only centered on one thing — with first base open, do we walk David Ortiz to load the bases with two outs and pitch to Kevin Youkilis, or should we challenge Ortiz, and the odds?
Entering the at-bat, Ortiz was 11-for-29 (.379) with a pair of home runs off Shields. Youkilis stood on-deck with a 3-for-30 (.100) mark against the Rays' right-hander. Seemed like a no-brainer. But whatever was said in that fateful encounter steered Maddon and Shields in another direction, and boy, did they pay for it.
Rather than work carefully to Boston's best power hitter, Shields grooved a 93-mph fastball straight down the middle and then watched as it got turned into a majestic shot deep into the bleachers in right, a no-doubter that altered the evening for good.
After Tampa Bay's 8-5 loss, the club's 20th in 32 games, Maddon shouldered the blame.
"I went out there to talk about that particular situation," he said. "Going into that at-bat, Papi had much more success than Youkilis did [against Shields]. I just wanted to go out there and see how he felt about things and I decided to pitch to Ortiz right there.
"So don't blame anybody but me."
Ortiz froze for a moment after finishing his swing before tossing his bat aside and staring at the ball's flight with his head tilted to one side, almost looking apologetic for what he had done. He wasn't, of course.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah," Ortiz said with a smile when asked if he knew he got all of it.
The Sox' leading home-run hitter with 17, Ortiz downplayed the insult of being pitched to rather than walked, which would've been a given back in the day.
"Oh no," he added. "I got Youk behind me."
When Shields struck out Youkilis on three pitches to end the inning, it was like rubbing salt in the wounds. Had they played the odds, the Rays would have been in a tie game going into the sixth. Instead, they trailed, and Shields never recovered, allowing the first three to reach in the sixth and leaving the game after Jason Varitek ripped an RBI single to make it 4-0.
"It changed the game," Sox manager Terry Francona said of Ortiz's blast.
The pitch that Ortiz crushed was straight as an arrow and belt-high, not where Shields would want to put it if he had intended on working carefully to the slugger who had owned him in the past.
"He did not want to throw that pitch where he did, I promise you that," Maddon said.
While it obviously comes down to execution, it begins with planning and making the right decision. Hindsight is 20/20, but it was clear after the big swing by Big Papi that the wrong one was made.
