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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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Price vs. Lee: The Trop has never seen anything like this

Posted Aug 16, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 16, 2010 at 10:37 AM

By ROGER MOONEY
ST. PETERSBURG Cliff Lee, the hired gun sought by those teams looking for October glory, brings his big-game reputation tonight to Tropicana Field where he will face David Price in the best late-season pitching matchup in the building’s history.

Oh yeah, tonight’s game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the visiting Texas Rangers is that intriguing.

Not only do you have a potential American League Division Series matchup between the Rangers, who enjoy an 8 1/2 game lead in the American League West, and the Wild Card leading Rays, who are a game back of the first-place Yankees in the American League East, but you have the first-ever Tropicana Field matchup of two left-handers with at least 10 wins and ERAs below 3.00.

Price (15-5, 2.84), who started the All-Star Game for the American League, is now the Rays all-time single-season leader in wins.

Lee (10-5, 2.57), the 2008 American League Cy Young Award winner, was acquired by Philadelphia in the middle of the 2009 season to pitch the Phillies to the World Series, which he did, and was acquired by Texas from Seattle in July with the hopes of helping the Rangers do the same this postseason.

“I think he might be the best pitcher out there right now in both leagues,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said of Lee.

Price, who is tied with CC Sabathia and Carl Pavano for the American League-lead in wins, has the chance to some day take that reputation away from Lee.

When it comes to Price, Maddon said the “sky is the limit.”

“David is potentially capable of being that way,” Maddon said.

Then, in reference to Lee, Maddon added, “That’s what the sky looks like right there.”

“He’s the real deal,” Price said of Lee. “Everybody here knows that, and everybody in baseball knows that. He’s tough. When he’s pitching against you, he’s pretty tough on that offense, so you’ve got to know as the opposing pitcher that you’ve got to come in with your A game. That’s what I’m looking to do (tonight). I want to go deep into the game and give us a chance to win.”

Lee, 6-4 with a 2.51 ERA lifetime against the Rays, is 0-2 with a 3.38 ERA in two starts against them earlier this season when Lee was still with the Mariners.

“It’s Cliff Lee. He’s going to be tough any way it goes,” Rays left fielder Carl Crawford said. “We just try to play our game against him. You can’t do too much, you can’t over-swing. You have to wait for him to make a mistake. That’s basically all you can do.”

But Lee doesn’t make many mistakes. He seldom walks a batter, is so economical with his pitches that he pitches deep into games and is just as sharp in the seventh or eighth innings as he was in the first and second.

“Lee’s able to throw where he wants to almost all the time,” Maddon said. “Very disgusting the way he repeats his delivery and pitches to a spot in such an efficient manner.”

The three-game series between playoff contenders will also be highlighted by the return to Tampa Bay of Josh Hamilton. The MVP candidate who was the first overall pick in the 1999 draft by the Rays, leads the major leagues with a .362 batting average. His 26 home runs are the fourth in the American League and his 80 RBIs are seventh in the league.

The Rays are hoping for the return first baseman Carlos Peña, who was 2-for-3 with a run and an RBI on Sunday in a rehab assignment with Class A Charlotte. Peña has not played since Aug. 1 because of right plantar fascia strain.

It’s a big series for both teams.

“Every game right now at this point of the season is huge,” Price said.

And it starts off with the best pitching matchup of the eight major league games played tonight.

“If you’re a baseball fan, you’ve got to be digging on this game,” Maddon said. “I don’t see how you can’t. For me, I’d love to see our first Monday night sellout with a non-giveaway. If you’re a real baseball aficionado, it doesn’t get much better than those two lefties going after it.”