RAYS COLUMN

Torre's Tough Season? Try Managing Rays

By JOE HENDERSON

Published: Jul 16, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Uh, Joe? Joe Torre?

We have to talk.

You're a fine manager - one of the best ever. You'll go into the Hall of Fame when you're done managing the Yankees. You've conducted yourself with dignity and class throughout your reign, now in its 12th season. You've won nine consecutive division championships and four World Series rings. You've earned the right to say what's on your mind.

But just between us, are you crazy?

In Sunday's Daily News of New York, Torre said that this season, and we quote, has "been the toughest one of the 12 years, no question."

All things are relative, I guess, but the Yankees are having a tough year? Seriously? Sure, they are just one game over .500 and they probably won't win the division. Might not even make the playoffs. That's not good.

But don't expect a lot of sympathy around these parts - even if two-thirds of the house of 36,048 Sunday at Tropicana Field was pulling for the Yankees. Torre thinks he has it tough? Let him swap places with Rays manager Joe Maddon for a month and he will see how tough things really can be.

Here's where we segue to the story line we've told so often this year. You know the saga of the Devil Rays' bullpen by heart now, so it's not really news that it imploded again and helped the Yanks escape with a 7-6 win. Tough season for Torre, eh? Try looking down at the bullpen and seeing Casey Fossum, et al., looking back. Every night.

Or try playing the season with a team that makes less, combined, than Alex Rodriguez. Or imagine what it's like to send Edwin Jackson (ERA: 7.14) out every fifth day to start because your only alternatives are in Durham. Or in high school.

And after you watch game after game slip away, as Sunday's did, then come back and talk about how tough things are.

Nothing Compares

The Yankees got out of town with three wins in the four-game series. They came from behind three times in the last two games, the last time in the eighth inning when they scored three times against that roulette wheel known as the Rays' bullpen.

The Rays had taken a 5-4 lead the inning before on a two-run homer by Carlos Pena, but they still had six outs to get and that might as well be Everest. Maddon, ever searching for positives, chose to blame the loss on maple bats instead of his no-relief corps.

That's awfully creative. He's getting good at this.

Maddon said the nefarious wood put a wicked spin on a ball hit by Andy Phillips to center fielder B.J. Upton in the fifth, causing the ball to hook away and roll to the wall for a triple. The play figured large in a four-run inning, which figured large in the game.

"I think they impart unusual spin in the ball sometimes … something needs to be done about that," Maddon said.

Fun fact: The Rays have lost 27 times this season when they had the lead.

Still think you have it tough, Mr. Torre?

Rays All-Star left fielder Carl Crawford pondered the Yankees' plight after the game. At first he laughed. Then he just shook his head. Then he laughed some more.

"Tough? They don't know what tough is. I know what tough is," he said. "If this is their toughest year, I don't know what to say."

Managing in New York presents challenges Joe Maddon will never know. But Lou Piniella knows what it's like to work for George Steinbrenner and he knows what it's like here. Put it this way: Sweet Lou gave up $2 million just to get out of his Rays' contract early because nothing in baseball compares to the sense of hopelessness you get at the Catwalk Confines game after game.

Question Of Expectations

It can't help to have players like Gary Sheffield go on national TV and say, as he did about Torre, that the manager treats black players differently from whites.

And if the Yankees miss the playoffs, there's a good chance Torre won't be back next season. That's tough love, to be sure. But playoffs? Playoffs? Try life in the real world for a change. Does anyone talk about playoffs around here?

Before Sunday's game, Maddon mused on the idea of sticking with pitchers like Jackson because his potential is great. That's the way the game is played in Devil Rays land - always with an eye on tomorrow because it beats looking at today. That's a fact of life Torre will never know.

Afterward in the other clubhouse, Torre was talking about "a hugely important game" that had turned out well for his team.

"They showed me a lot of something," he said of the Yankees.

Good thing, I guess. Losing that game would have been hard for his team.

It would have been, dare we say it, a tough loss.

But here in Rays land, it was just another day in paradise.