Red-Racers Forum » With answers lacking and excuses thrown out, Lupu

ARLINGTON, Texas -- All Adam Rosales had to do was watch four pitches miss their mark. Tampa Bays Cesar Ramos walked Rosales with two outs in the 14th inning to force in the winning run and the Texas Rangers beat the Rays 3-2 on Tuesday night. Ramos (2-5), the Rays seventh pitcher, walked Rosales on four pitches, allowing pinch-running pitcher Nick Martinez to score. "Thats just unacceptable on my part," Ramos said. Texas sixth pitcher, Scott Baker (1-3) earned the victory with two scoreless innings. The Rangers had lost all 20 games in which he appeared before Tuesday. "Baker got the job done, and now hes got a win," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. Geovany Soto reached on third baseman Evan Longorias error with one out in the 14th. Martinez entered and advanced on singles by Rougned Odor and Shin-Soo Choo. "I just kind of went off Elvis (Andrus) at-bat," Rosales said. "He really didnt give Elvis too many good pitches to hit, so I figured Youve got to be really patient with this guy." Rays manager Joe Maddon said, "Just throw a strike there. Give us a chance." In contrast, Texas pitchers allowed no walks. Rangers starter Nick Tepesch allowed no hits until Sean Rodriguez singled to lead off the fifth inning. Texas tied the score 2-all in the seventh against reliever Joel Peralta. Odors sacrifice fly and a double by Choo drove in the runs. Rays right fielder Kevin Kiermaier then threw out Choo trying to score on Andrus single. Desmond Jennings and Matt Joyce tripled and scored for the Rays two runs in the sixth. Tampa Bays Jeremy Hellickson pitched six scoreless innings, allowing six hits. He preserved the Rays 2-0 lead in the sixth after Texas put runners on second and third with one out. Tepesch allowed four hits and no walks in seven innings. Texas bullpen went another seven innings without allowing a walk - and only two hits. "Outstanding," Washington said. "The biggest one was (Roman) Mendez coming in and getting Longoria (with two out in the eighth)." Said Rosales: "Thank goodness our pitching staff really kept us in it." TRAINERS ROOM Rangers: RF Alex Rios (sprained right ankle) wasnt in the lineup for the second consecutive game, but pinch hit in the 13th inning. ... RHP Tanner Scheppers, out for the season with an inflamed elbow, said he would be a reliever next year. Rays: Kiermaier, who left Mondays game because of tightness in his left lower back, returned to the lineup. UP NEXT The teams will play the third game of a four-game set Wednesday night. Tampa Bay: RHP Chris Archer (7-6, 3.33) hasnt pitched in Arlington, and is 0-0 with a 2.77 career starts against Texas. Rangers: RHP Miles Mikolas (1-4), who has lowered his ERA from 10.05 to 6.57 in his last four starts, will face the Rays for the first time. SNAPPING A SLUMP Texas CF Leonys Martin, hitless in his previous 12 at-bats, singled four times for his first career four-hit game. He had been 6-for-54 in his previous 16 games. CHALLENGING The Rays won a fifth-inning challenge and lost one in the 10th. First, Martin was called safe on a slide at second base, but after review he was out. In the 10th, replay confirmed that Zobrist was out at first. PERFECT ANNIVERSARY Before the bottom of the second inning, Ivan Rodriguez represented the Rangers in recognizing retired LHP Kenny Rogers. He had the only perfect game in franchise history, on July 28, 1994. Rodriguez caught Rogers that night. Wholesale Air Jordan . - Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II says the NFL has told the team it will not be docked a pick in this years draft for coach Mike Tomlins foray onto the field against Baltimore last November. Cheap Jordans . Louis Blues and Buffalo Sabres came to an agreement on a big trade that may only offer incremental improvement to the Blues in their quest for a Stanley Cup. http://www.wholesaleairjordanfromchina.com/ .85 million contract with the two-time Gold Glove outfielder. Parra earned his second Gold Glove last season when he set a club record with 17 outfield assists. Cheap Jordan From China . - Buffalo Bills running back C.TORONTO - What a difference three days made for the Toronto Maple Leafs. In the Winter Classic they played in front of 105,491 fans, many of whom drove several hours to Michigan Stadium to watch the spectacle amid frigid temperatures. Saturday night against the New York Rangers they were booed off the ice multiple times in an embarrassing 7-1 loss at Air Canada Centre that snapped the Leafs winning streak at three. "Getting booed off the ice in the first period, second period and the end of the game — and we deserved it," winger Joffrey Lupul said. "We were not good in any aspect. We dont feel very good about ourselves right now." There wasnt much to feel good about as the Leafs (21-17-5) experienced the worst kind of let-down from the high of the Winter Classic. Goaltender Jonathan Bernier, who had been stellar lately, was pulled for the first time all season, David Clarkson and Carl Gunnarsson left with injuries and everything fell apart at the seams. "Sometimes you have losses where you take some positives out of: some guys played well, you did certain things well, you didnt do other things well," said Lupul, who had Torontos only goal. "Tonight we did nothing well. Theres not much we can take out of this other than just not wanting to have this feeling in here again." The feeling of the loss led to the home locker-room being closed to the media much longer than usual. Coach Randy Carlyle called his teams lack of a push-back the "most disappointing thing" as goals piled up from Carl Hagelin, Dominic Moore (two), Benoit Pouliot, Chris Kreider, Brad Richards and Brian Byle. He shared the same sentiment with players. "My message was it was unacceptable to play and to feel that we were not embarrassed by what our performance was," Carlyle said. "And I stressed we." There was plenty of soul-searching after the Leafs most lopsided loss of the season, and as Lupul pointed out, plenty of blame to go around. Bernier, who had stopped 181-of-190 shots since relieving James Reimer on Dec. 21 against the Detroit Red Wings, gave up five goals on 32 shots to the Rangers before getting yanked for the first time this season. Moores first goal from a bad angle, which made it 2-0, was the softest he has allowed in a long time. Still, this one couldnt be pinned on Bernier, or even Reimer, who didnt fare much better in allowing two goals on 18 shots. "They had the freedom to roam about the ice and do what they wanted to do, and we didnt engage in the competitive side of it of limiting their space, stepping in front of anybody, skating in front of anybody to impede the progress," Carlyle said. "Obviously we left our goalies hanging high and dry." With the Leafs rarely in control of the puck and players being a step slow at times, the Rangers (21-20-2) pounced. They scored at least six goals for the first time this season and could have had as many as nine if Rick Nash finished on an empty net early and a late goal by Pouliot wasnt called back for Boyle interfering with Reimer. It was a real bounce-back effort for New York after losing 5-2 at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night. "I know the guys were ready last night and turned the page on it, analyzed it, we got ready, the guys came out, moved the puck well, got some good opportunitiies and we were able to finish a couple," coach Alain Vigneault said.dddddddddddd It stuck out that the Leafs couldnt keep pace with the Rangers, who travelled and were playing the second half of back-to-back games. "Its always disappointing when you give up seven goals, and especially they played last night," Bernier said. "They were just quicker and faster than us." All night the Leafs had no answers for what the Rangers were doing in the offensive zone. Defenceman Cody Franson, who was burned a couple of times on plays that led to goals, knew he and his teammates were on their heels from the get-go. "We got outworked, to put it mildly," Franson said. The Leafs certainly didnt do enough work to put pressure on Rangers backup goaltender Cam Talbot, who stopped 25 of the 26 shots thrown on net. It was another steady outing from the rookie, who improved to 9-3-0 with a 1.66 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. "Ive always just kind of started as a backup and then started playing more games, so Ive been in these situations before and you learn from every situation youre in," Talbot said. Theres not much the Leafs can learn from this one. They lost Clarkson to a left foot injury after he got hit with a shot from Rangers defenceman Michael Del Zotto and Gunnarsson to an upper-body injury following a hit from Hagelin. "No offence to those guys, but I dont know if they wouldve been helping tonight," Lupul said. "You never like to see guys go down, and those are two veteran guys and were hoping theyre all right. ... Thats certainly not an excuse for how we played tonight." Getting beaten so handily right after the Winter Classic was a ready-made excuse, even though Lupul and Carlyle noted that the Leafs were relieved to be done with the hype that came with the game and HBOs "24/7." Carlyle ended his post-game news conference blowing off any excuses. "I just look at tonight, you could go forwards, defence, you could go to our whole group, and we didnt have the competitive edge thats required to have success," he said. "Everything that I say is going to be an excuse, so Im not here to make an excuse for anybody." With answers lacking and excuses thrown out, Lupul passed along to reporters what was said in the locker-room afterward. It wasnt pretty. "Were not proud of that game, its embarrassing," he said. "I apologize to people who paid money to see us play like that. Its one game and were going to feel pretty bad about this tonight and then hopefully tomorrow come back and practise and get some life and try to turn the page on it." After so much notable progress in recent games, the Leafs were outshot 50-26. The loss stunted any momentum they had been building. "We felt that we were becoming more competitive," Carlyle said. "And this one kind of sent an A-bomb." NOTES — Newly acquired defenceman Tim Gleason was a healthy scratch as Carlyle stuck with the same lineup from the Winter Classic. Gleason took warm-ups, but Carlyle announced Saturday morning that the former Carolina Hurricanes blue-liner would not play unless there was a late injury or illness. ... Talbot got the start after Henrik Lundqvist played Friday night in Pittsburgh and allowed five goals in a loss to the Penguins. ' ' '