Rays react to loss

PHILADELPHIA -- It was heading toward 2 a.m. when Carlos Ruiz's dribbler -- hard to even call it a hit -- scored the winning run for the Phillies. It was a fairly ugly sequence, from the hit batter to the wild pitch to the overthrow of second base to the RBI single that finished off Game 3 of the World Series.

Because it finished after our final editions went to print, I thought I'd add some thoughts from the losing side, the Rays, to tide you over until tomorrow afternoon.

"Threw a fastball in and [shoot] he hit it five feet, and that was the difference, I guess," reliever Grant Balfour said.

There was little that Balfour could do at that point, though. J.P. Howell had started the inning by hitting Eric Bruntlett, then Balfour came in and threw a wild pitch that Dioner Navarro decided to grab and throw down to second base to get the advancing Bruntlett. Didn't work, as the ball went into centerfield. Bruntlett headed to third base, followed by two intentional walks, then up came Carlos Ruiz and a play Carlos Pena called "just weird."

"Just one of those swinging bunts that just worked out perfect for them," Balfour said. "You're hoping he hits it harder than what he did. If he hits the ball a little bit harder that's a perfect double play ball for us. But he gets it right off the end of the bat there, gets stuck in the grass, goes five feet. There's nothing you can do. It's tough to defend that."

And the Rays couldn't, which leaves them down 2-1 in the Series to the Phillies. Tonight brings Game 4 and the Joe Blanton-Andy Sonnanstine matchup in a game that becomes even bigger for the Rays when the realize that Cole Hamels is on the horizon in Game 5.

"It's not the first time [we've lost this kind of game]," Pena said. "Obviously we're talking about the World Series, we should be going crazy right now. But we're really not. We lost this ballgame, they beat us. That was a crazy end there at the end, and fortunately for them they had a lot of fun there at the end.

"Any loss it tough to take at first, but we've had worse than this one. I can go back to the one in Fenway [Game 5 of the ALCS]. We got over that, so for sure we'll get over this one."