Heat slows but doesn't stop Shields

ROGER MOONEY
rmooney@bradenton.com

ST. PETERSBURG – It was a great day to run the Bay-to-Bay 12K across St. Petersburg on Sunday morning what with the low cloud coverage, fog and cool breeze off the water.

Excellent conditions for a strenuous outside activity.

Not so six hours later when James Shields took the mound at Al Lang Field. By then the clouds had cleared and the sun was out and the temperature rose from 76 degrees at game time to the mid-80s.

“The heat was turned up all of a sudden,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said.

And Shields felt it. That, coupled with a cold he’s been fighting the past few days caused Shields to struggle early, especially in the first when he hit a batter and walked another.

Still, the right-hander who will pitch the season opener in place of the injured Scott Kazmir threw 4 2/3 innings scoreless innings and earned the victory as the Rays won 7-2. He walked three, struck out four and allowed just two hits.

“My body was drained the first few innings and I just tried to overthrow, compensate for my energy level,” Shields said. “The last two innings I toned that down a little bit and concentrated on throwing strikes.”

Shields hit Curtis Granderson to start the game, then allowed a hit-and-run single to Palcido Polanco. But he got Gary Sheffield to pop out to first, and catcher Mike DiFelice threw out Granderson trying to steal third base. Shields ended the inning by striking out Jacques Jones.

“He wasn’t as sharp as normal in regards to his rotation, but he got the appropriate number of pitches in and made some good pitches when he had to,” Maddon said. “The walks were a little uncharacteristic. I think he may have been a little bit not feeling it, and he wanted to force it at times. But once again, he demonstrated that even when he’s not at the top of his game he pitches pretty well.”

Shields walked Edgar Renteria to start the second. That’s when DiFelice went out to the mound.

“He’s a veteran,” Shields said. “If I had kept going I might have thrown a lot of balls in the next AB. But he came out and gave me a breather and gathered myself.”
Shields settled down and struck out Brandon Inge and retired the next two Tigers on ground balls.

In between innings he headed to the trainers room and had ice placed on his neck so he good cool off.

“I went out there earlier in the day, this morning and it wasn’t that hot,” Shields said. “It was overcast. But I’ve been kind of sick the last couple of days, my body hasn’t been feeling good, and the heat kind of got me the first couple of innings.”
Shields has thrown a team-high 14 2/3 innings. His ERA is 1.84, second lowest on the team among starters. Jeff Niemann has a 1.13 ERA, but he has pitched just eight innings.

Another home plate collision

Renteria ran over DiFelice while trying to score from first in the sixth inning, but no fingers were pointed and no one accused anyone of being “boarder line criminal.”
“I didn’t think anything of it,” DiFelice said. “I was taught to block the plate. It’s a defensive play. We’re supposed to stop runs. I don’t think anything of it. It was a baseball play, and luckily he was out.”

Said Maddon: “I was good with the entire play.”

Riggans OK

Shawn Riggans feared the worst when he took a fastball off his left hand Saturday against the Atlanta Braves at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.

For someone who has been injured so often during his career, the pain led him to believe he was headed for the disabled list again.

But X-Rays showed only a bruise, and Riggans won’t catch for four or five days until the bruise heals enough to allow him catch a pitch without pain.

“Luckily it hit the meaty part of my hand,” Riggans said. “At first I thought it was bad news. Finally I caught the break I’ve been looking for.”

Johnson in center field

Elliot Johnson pinch-hit in the sixth inning and stayed in the game, playing center field during the final three innings. Maddon wants to see if Johnson, an second baseman by trade, can be as versatile as Ben Zobrist, the man Johnson might replace on the Opening Day roster.

Johnson showed Maddon what he could do by racing to his left to make a diving catch a line drive by Detroit’s Max St. Pierre.

“(Right fielder Jon) Weber moved me over just before the pitch,” Johnson said. “He was like, ‘Get over here.’ He moved over about five steps.”

Johnson said he took a bad angle on the ball but made up for it with the dive.
“It was a very good play,” Maddon said.

Johnson said he is getting comfortable playing the outfield. He takes fly balls out there during batting practice played three innings in right field Saturday.

“I’ve always had natural outfield instincts going back on the ball,” he said. “Coming in is a little more challenging. The more I get out there it’s not as difficult as I thought it was.”

Johnson had a two-run single in the seventh off Bobby Seay with the bases loaded that drove home the final runs of the game. He’s now batting .517 with seven RBIs.

“He’s having a good spring,” Maddon said.

That he can play center field well enough to make a diving catch only enhances Johnson’s worth to the team.

“A play like that is cool for me so (Maddon) can take a look and say, ‘Hey. Maybe this guy can play out there,’ and slide me on that roster to Baltimore,” Johnson said.

Rays win 13th

Aki Iwamura singled home Mike DiFelice to start a three-run third inning as the Raysbeat the visiting Tigers 7-2 for their 13th win of the spring and moved one win shy of tying the franchise record for Grapefruit League victories. The 1999 and 2000 squads both won 14.

The Rays have 14 games left.

The 2005 and 2006 squads each won 13 games.

The Rays won just 10 times last spring.

Next game

The Rays are off today. They return to action Tuesday in Clearwater against the Phillies. Matt Garza is scheduled to make his fourth start of the spring.


This & That
B.J. Upton drove in a run Sunday with a sacrifice fly to give him a team-high nine RBIs this spring. His sixth inning double was his team-high fifth two-base hit of the spring … Troy Percival’s run of consecutive perfect appearances was stopped at three when he allowed a leadoff single to Gary Sheffield in the sixth inning. Percival had retired the first nine batters he faced this spring … Andy Sonnanstine worked the final three innings as he gets stretched out to possibly fill a spot in the rotation … Sunday’s attendance of 6,755 was the largest crowd to see the Rays play at Al Lang.