Rays pregame, lineup

After sitting out the first two games of this best-of-seven American League Championship Series, Rocco Baldelli, the 27-year-old pride of Woonsocket, R.I., will make his first appearance in the series by hitting eighth in Joe Maddon's lineup and playing right field.

To those in the Rays clubhouse who have witnessed what Baldelli has gone through this season, missing the first 116 games while battling a mitochrondrial disorder that left him feeling extremely fatigued from normal physical exertion, his presence in the lineup was nothing short of miraculous.

"It's amazing,'' said pitcher Andy Sonnanstine, one of Baldelli's closest friends in the Rays clubhouse and Tampa Bay's scheduled Game 4 starter. "You know, something, an issue like that, it's completely out of his control. I've had talks with him . . . about stepping away from the game, and that was pretty tough time for him.

"You know, he did everything he could to see as many doctors as he could and try to figure this thing out.''

When he was reinstated to the roster Aug. 10 (as part of a corresponding move when Carl Crawford was placed on the DL), one of the first things Baldelli did was to have a long toss with Sonnanstine before his first game back at Seattle.

Baldelli wound up going 1 for 4 with an RBI single in his second at-bat vs. the Mariners. It was his first major league game in 15 months after he missed the final 124 games of the 2007 season due to a hamstring injury.

"When I saw him come out and play in Safeco [Field], it was awesome,'' Sonnanstine said. "It was like watching a son go out and play, everything he's been through and dealt with. It's just amazing. It speaks a lot about his character to just get through it and persevere and get back to playing.''

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Before Game 3, Evan Longoria seemed to indicate there was a discernible difference in Josh Beckett's velocity in Game 2. "Obviously, just by looking at the radar gun, his velocity was down a bit,'' Longoria said. However, the Rays' rookie slugger was not prepared to say if it was because of Beckett's strained oblique or, perhaps, lingering effects from the strained right elbow he suffered during the regular season.

"What that has to do with, I don't know,'' Longoria said. "Whatever the case may be, Beckett is not a guy who's fun to face. Whether he's got his best stuff or his worst stuff, I mean, he battles the whole game and he wants to be in there 1 through 9. He never wants to come out. It doesn't matter if a guy throws 75 or 95, you don't want to face a guy like that, because he doesn't want you to get hits and he's not going to let you off the hook. He's tough.''

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Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey used the word "behemothian'' Sunday to describe the impact of Dan Wheeler's 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief in Saturday night's 9-8 victory in Game 2.

"It's huge, because I didn't want to come here down 0-2,'' Longoria said before this afternoon's game at Fenway Park. "This is a tough enough place to play already and with all the pressure and everything that's going to be involved. Having to come here and win two would've been a tough task.''

So what was it like to play a baseball game for 5 1/2 hours?

``If that's a regular-season game, you really realize it was 5 1/2 hours,'' Longoria said. "But since it was a playoff game, it seemed like 4 1/2.''

Oh.

"It was long,'' Longoria said. "But I'm sure it was a whole heck of a lot longer for the Red Sox, having to jump on a flight after losing that game.''

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The lineup:

1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. B.J. Upton, CF
3. Carlos Pena,1B
4. Evan Longoria, 3B
5. Carl Crawford, LF
6. Willy Aybar, DH
7. Dioner Navarro, C
8. Rocco Baldelli, RF
9. Jason Bartlett, SS

SP: Matt Garza (0-1, 7.50 ERA)