After hand surgery, Crawford gets high five

Carl Crawford slides into third base ahead of Kevin Youkilis's tag in the first inning. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

After Tampa Bay was shut out by Daisuke Matsuzaka in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, David Ortiz seemed to detect something different in the way the youthful AL East champs looked last Friday night, suggesting the Rays appeared a bit frightened. Perhaps a bit out of their element in their first postseason appearance.

"I saw faces different tonight than what I saw in the regular season," Ortiz said at the time.

Well, who's looking scared now?

It isn't Tampa Bay. Or, for that matter, Carl Crawford.

The upstart Rays, who went from worst to first to win the East, pushed the reigning world champions to the brink of elimination last night with a 13-4 annihilation. The Rays bludgeoned Sox pitching - knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, in particular - for 13 runs on 14 hits, including three home runs.

As for Crawford? The Rays' left fielder led the offensive barrage by going 5 for 5. Each time Crawford stepped to the plate, he reached base.

"Just every at-bat, you're trying to concentrate and get a base hit," Crawford said. "Try try not to do too much, trying to get on base so I could use my speed. I was able to find the hole tonight."

Crawford doubled to right in the Rays' huge three-run first inning off Wakefield; in the third, he hit a squibber near the mound and beat Wakefield's diving toss to first; he doubled to left off Justin Masterson in the fifth; he had a bases-loaded single to left that scored B.J. Upton with Tampa's ninth run in the sixth; and, in the eighth, as his parting shot, he hit an RBI triple to right to complete his night of nights.

When Crawford was finished, he had 5 hits, 3 runs, 2 RBIs, and 2 steals. The five hits tied Baltimore's Paul Blair (1969) and New York's Hideki Matsui (2004) as the only players in LCS history to have five hits in a game.

"It's so nice having Carl in the middle of everything," said Rays manager Joe Maddon.

A month ago, Maddon wasn't so certain Crawford would even be available to play in the postseason. Crawford, 27, suffered a subluxation of his right middle finger tendon Aug. 9 while checking his swing against Mariners closer J.J. Putz. On Aug. 14, he underwent an operation in Phoenix.

"I definitely thought it was the end of the season," said Crawford, who had five hits in a game once before. "I didn't think I'd be playing right now. I had to do a lot of rehabbing, a lot of running to stay in shape, a lot of lifting.

"I had to keep my mind focused on being positive all the time. I actually thought I wasn't going to be able to play, so to be here right now I'm very grateful and I'm just happy to be back."

It was a sentiment he shared with his manager.

"Carl really expedited his return to the lineup just for the playoffs with his hand, postsurgery," said Maddon, referring to Crawford's activation on Sept. 26, the last weekend of the season.

"This guy is coming off surgery. You have to understand that. It's not just an injury that he was on the DL [rehabbing]. He actually had surgery.

"To come back as quickly - he actually beat the doctors' timetable in a sense and really wanted to participate. He played in a couple of instructional league games prior to the playoffs against the White Sox and wanted to show us that he was well and ready to do it."

Crawford certainly showed it from Game 1 when led off the seventh with a sharply hit single to right that broke up Matsuzaka's no-hit bid.

"He was pitching a good game," Crawford said of Matsuzaka, who will take the mound in Game 5 tomorrow. "I got a pitch I could handle and got the base hit."

And he has barely stopped since.