ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – Once Matt Garza got control of his emotions, the pitching fell into place.
As evidence: He won the MVP award in the AL championship series and helped put the Tampa Bay Rays into the World Series against Philadelphia.
Garza was involved in a heated dugout exchange with Tampa Bay catcher Dioner Navarro during a June 8 game at Texas. Other times this season, Garza would display negative emotions on the mound when things went wrong.
Discussions with Rays manager Joe Maddon, and personal reflections helped Garza channel his emotions into the right direction. The 24-year-old right-hander wound up winning twice in Tampa Bay’s seven-game victory over Boston in the ALCS.
“I just tell myself, I’ve got to go one pitch at a time,” Garza, the scheduled Game 3 starter against Philadelphia’s Jamie Moyer, said Thursday. “Not look ahead. Not even look back at any pitch I’ve thrown. Once a pitch is gone, it’s over. I can’t control what happens after that.”
Garza won Games 3 and 7 against the Red Sox, allowing two earned runs in 13 innings.
“I wanted to go out there and kind of make a statement to myself,” Garza said.
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BALK TALK: A day later, umpire crew chief Tim Welke still thought it wasn’t a balk.
In the only dispute from Game 1, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon felt Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels balked in the sixth inning while picking off Carlos Pena. The Rays trailed 3-2 at the time and didn’t get another runner the rest of the way in the loss.
Maddon argued the non-call from the dugout. Wearing a microphone for Fox TV, Welke was heard telling Maddon that the umpires would later review replays.
“We did look at it after the game, and it did have distance and direction,” Welke said in a statement through Mike Port, Major League Baseball’s vice president for umpiring.
As in, the umpires felt Hamels properly stepped toward first base on the throw, rather than making a tricky move toward home to confuse Pena.
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BEEN THERE: Major League Baseball umpire supervisor Jim McKean knows the pressure of a big game as both a player and an umpire.
McKean was the quarterback when Saskatchewan won the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup in 1966. He later became a major league baseball umpire and worked the World Series in 1979, 1985 and 1995.
big games, too,” McKean said. “My premise is, if the umpiring is not good, the games are not good. You can have the two best teams in the world, and if that umpire behind the plate or that umpire on the bases is not good, then it’s not going to be a good game. So that’s where the pressure lies.”
McKean said the umpires get butterflies, just like the players.
“Then they go away after the first pitch like most of the players,” McKean said.
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A NEW ERA DAWNING: Tampa Bay pitcher James Shields feels the Rays’ losing ways are in the past, and that the starting rotation is an important reason why.
“To me, it’s kind of scary. I’m the oldest pitcher … I’m 26 years old,” said Shields, who started Game 2. “It’s going to be fun. I talked to all the starters, and we said, ‘Man, five or six years from now we could still be together really doing this thing.’ It’s pretty exciting.”
If there was one benefit from Tampa Bay’s lean years, the team never won more than 70 games in a regular season before this season, it was that players were allowed to develop at the major league level.
“Being as bad as we have been the last two years, we were able to give guys on-the-job training, which a lot of organizations or teams could not have done that,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “All of a sudden you’ve got talented guys that are able to turn into what you’re seeing right now.”
Maddon agrees with Shields that the Rays will continue to be a force after this season.
“It’s not a flash-in-the-pan situation,” Maddon said. “We believe we built this thing for the long haul. We needed to change the way we think, period. That’s accountability. That is about trust. I thought we were a low-trust organization.”
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SKIP THE DH?: Phillies manager Charlie Manuel knew the question was coming.
Philadelphia Game 2 starter Brett Myers was a big hitter during the NL playoffs, getting four hits in five at-bats. In fact, during Game 2 of the NLCS, the right-hander became the first pitcher to get three hits and drive in three runs in a postseason game since 1919.
So, any chance Myers will get to hit when the designated hitter can be used?
“You know, I heard somebody say the other day we should let Myers DH. I don’t guess I’ve got that much nerve yet,” Manuel said with a laugh.
Greg Dobbs was the Phillies’ Game 2 designated hitter. He struck out looking with runners on second and third in his first at-bat.
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Girls Club of America for Game 3 of the World Series on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park.
McGraw was invited by the Phillies and Major League Baseball as a gesture to honor his late father, who was a key member of Philadelphia’s only World Series championship team in 1980.
Multi-platinum country artist Taylor Swift will perform the national anthem before Game 3. Two-time Grammy award winner Patti LaBelle will sing anthem before Game 4.
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AROUND THE BASES: Philadelphia left-hander Cole Hamels is the first Phillies pitcher to win four postseason games in the same season. He is also the fourth major league pitcher to win the first game of the division, league and World Series in the same year, joining Josh Beckett (2007), David Wells (1998) and John Smoltz (1996). … Phillies closer Brad Lidge autographed a sign held up by a fan near the Philadelphia dugout that said “Only God saves more than Brad Lidge.” … Gen. David Petraeus, the former overall commander of U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, threw out the first ball.
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