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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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Rays vs Red Sox: Hellickson takes his turn

Posted Sep 10, 2011 by Roger Mooney

Updated Sep 10, 2011 at 03:44 PM

ROGER MOONEY
ST. PETERSBURG Jeremy Hellickson takes his turn tonight during this crucial three-game series with the Wild Card-leading Red Sox.

Wade Davis turned a complete game in Friday’s 7-2 win, which moved the Rays to within 5 ½ games of the Red Sox – the closest they’ve been to the Wild Card leader since they were 5 ½ back of the Yankees on July 21.

Hellickson, who tossed his second complete game of the season last Sunday when he beat the Orioles, has a chance to bring the Rays even closer.

Hellickson said his win against the Orioles was his best performance of his season because he was commanding his fastball early in the count. That had been a problem for much of the season for the rookie.

“I had trouble throwing quality strikes counts earlier for most of the year and the last game was a good indicator I was spotting my fastball well first couple of pitches, getting early swings and early outs,” he said.

That will be a must tonight against a patient and powerful Red Sox lineup.

“If you get ahead with fastball early, and then go to the other stuff and not get predictable, you have a shot,” manager Joe Maddon said. “But the moment you’re getting behind and get predictable, forget about it.”

The Red Sox have lost five of their last six and eight of their last 11. They are starting rookie Kyle Weiland is 0-1 with a 6.75 ERA in two starts and one relief appearance totaling 12 innings.

Red Sox fans are having trouble breathing.

Here are the lineups:

RED SOX
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Ortiz DH
Reddick RF
Crawford LF
Lowrie 3B
Scutaro SS
Saltalamacchia C
—
Weiland P

RAYS
Jennings LF
Upton CF
Longoria 3B
Zobrist 2B
Damon DH
Joyce RF
Kotchman 1B
Jaso C
Rodriguez SS
—
Hellickson P