Thumbs up for Kazmir

His walk to the mound was long and slow because Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon wasn't sure he wanted any more bad news. And he certainly wasn't prepared for the news he got when he arrived. His stellar starter, Scott Kazmir, had begun to experience that most awkward of injuries, the thumb cramp.

That's right. Thumb cramp.

''It must have been from playing too many video games growing up," said Maddon. ''I'd never experienced a thumb cramp before. Just looked too strange, so we got him out."

After Kazmir took two test tosses on the mound, the Devil Rays' brain trust determined they weren't about to injure their most promising young arm any further, especially not after 101 pitches in the 5 2/3 innings that would lead to the 5-1 Tampa Bay victory. So four pitches into a Mike Lowell at-bat -- two balls, two strikes -- Kazmir and his ''locked up" thumb got a walk back to the dugout and some quizzical looks from his manager, who probably still isn't sure whether this was a first-time occurrence.

(Note to Maddon: According to Kazmir, it wasn't. It happened in high school, from which the 22-year-old is not that far removed.)

Before the cramping, which Kazmir said might have been caused by dehydration from medicine taken for a cold two days ago, the pitcher had been rolling. With a killer fastball-slider combination, Kazmir had given up just four hits and struck out seven, only allowing a run on a second-inning Dustan Mohr home run that hit off the hands of fans in the last row of Monster seats and fell onto Lansdowne Street.

And it could have been eight strikeouts. Maddon got into a bit of a shouting match with first base umpire Ron Kulpa after Kulpa ruled that Manny Ramírez didn't swing on a two-strike slider in the sixth inning, with Ramírez eventually drawing Kazmir's only walk of the game.

''He has an explosive fastball, a hard breaking ball, and we haven't figured him out very well yet," manager Terry Francona said. ''We are certainly going to have to because, with them in our division, we are going to face him a number of times. I think he is 22, so he is probably not going to retire any time soon."

Not unless these cramps become routine.

Until then, Kazmir will continue earning membership in the Rodrigo Lopez Red Sox Killers Club, with his résumé already good enough against the denizens of Fenway. Kazmir raised his numbers to 3-1 with a 2.64 ERA in eight starts against the Red Sox. Kazmir has authored the Devil Rays' last three wins at Fenway.

''I don't know," Kazmir said, trying to explain his success in Boston and struggling for the first time of the night. ''Being at Fenway, I'll tell you, it does get you up for the game. Sold-out crowd every time. The environment's nice. I don't know what it is."

There was one thing it wasn't. With Curt Schilling's WEEI bashing of the young pitcher fresh in his mind, he insisted the words had no effect on his motivation or his inside pitching or, really, anything. (Schilling insinuated that Kazmir, who arrived in 2004 via trade from the Mets and was inexperienced pitching inside, was to blame for the bad blood between the teams.)

''I thought he responded to all of the different innuendos very well," Maddon said. ''He had a great look about him. He was very prepared for [last night] mentally. And that may have done something to spur him on.

''He's going to be special," Maddon said, before stopping to correct himself. ''He is special."