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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Can Rays clinch with this lineup?

Posted Sep 26, 2010 by Tribune Sports

Updated Sep 26, 2010 at 01:05 PM

By TONY FABRIZIO

ST. PETERSBURG The Rays’ series finale with the Mariners this afternoon begins what could be a long day that ends with the club clinching just its second postseason berth.

With a magic number of two, the Rays will lock up at least the wild-card berth if they beat the Mariners and the Yankees beat the Red Sox tonight. Because of TV, the Boston-New York game doesn’t start until 8:05 p.m.

The Rays lead the Yankees in the AL East by 1 1/2 games and have a magic number of six for winning the division. That’s any combination of Rays wins and Yankees losses.

Manager Joe Maddon is looking ahead and resting All-Star left fielder Carl Crawford and right fielder/second baseman Ben Zobrist. Desmond Jennings is in left field, Rocco Baldelli is in right, Dioner Navarro is catching and Kelly Shoppach is the DH. WIth Evan Longoria missing a third consecutive game because of a strained left quad, defensively challenged Willy Aybar gets a start at third.

“I had it planned.” Maddon said. “I was really wanting us to win the first two games (the Rays did) so that I could do this more comoforbably and that’s’ what we’re going to do. We’re going to give them today off. They’ve been grinding it out pretty well. I always like to give Carl his days off on this surface when we can. And Zobrist has been all over the place, and he’s been after it pretty good, too.”

Tampa Bay’s lineup has four players hitting .200 or worse (Carlos Pena, .199; Kelly Shoppach, .199, Dioner Navarro, .200 and Desmond Jennings, .158).

Here are the lineups:

MARINERS

Ichiro Suzuki, RF
Chone Figgins, 2B
Jose Lopez, DH
Franklin Gutierrez, CF
Justin Smoak, 1B
Matt Mangini, 3B
Josh Bard, C
Greg Halman, LF
Josh Wilson, SS
—
Luke French, LHP (4-6, 4.23)

RAYS

B.J. Upton, CF
Jason Bartlett, SS
Willy Aybar, 3B
Rocco Baldelli, RF
Carlos Pena, 1B
Kelly Shoppach, DH
Sean Rodriguez, 2B
Dioner Navarro, C
Desmond Jennings, LF
—
James Shields, RHP (13-13, 4.96)