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Hamilton owns center Maddon sent to the showers

Published Oct. 8, 2010 10:50 a.m. ET

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Upton, teammates are scuffling

. The Rays could manage only two hits off the Rangers on Thursday, and the frustration is shared by the team. One player particularly stymied is B.J. Upton, who is 0-for-8 in the series with four strikeouts as the No. 2 hitter. The centerfielder said it's best to have amnesia. "Their pitchers have done exactly what we expected them to do, but we haven't done what we expected," Upton said. "It's behind us.

All we can do is worry about Saturday." While Upton struggled at the plate, he had, perhaps, the Rays' best defensive play of the game Thursday. After Michael Young singled to open the seventh inning, he tagged up on Josh Hamilton's fly ball to deep centerfield and headed for second base. But Upton launched a perfect strike to second baseman Sean Rodriguez, who put the tag on Young to complete the double play. Rangers centerfielder Josh Hamilton knows how important his presence is in the lineup, especially because he's still nursing a nagging rib injury that has forced him to wear pads under his jersey. ? But Thursday, Hamilton didn't hesitate to risk his body to make a big defensive play - lunging, diving and wall-crashing in Tropicana Field's vast centerfield. ? Hamilton made consecutive catches to take away hits from the first two Rays batters of the second inning: He extended himself after a full sprint to catch Ben Zobrist's liner to right-center, then slid face-first in the left-center gap to rob Willy Aybar of extra bases. ? "You want to do what you can," Hamilton said. "You don't want them to get a rally going. You don't want them to get any momentum. I think (the Rangers are) a little more comfortable with me being out there after (Wednesday's game). Seeing fly balls and line drives, I'm feeling pretty good with it." ? Hamilton crashed into the centerfield wall but lost Aybar's seventh-inning double - one of just two Tampa Bay hits - in the white roof. The former top prospect of the Rays admitted he was sore after the game and credited the Trop's softer-than-most outfield wall but said he never thought of not going full speed to make the plays. ? "It never crossed my mind not to go after them or to let up when I get close to it, especially at this time of the year," Hamilton, 29, said. "Every pitch is intense, and you're so much more ready for anything at this point." The ratings game

Treanor takes

a beaning

. Rangers catcher Matt Treanor didn't get a hit Thursday, but two of his at-bats were among Texas' most important. Treanor reached base after he was hit by James Shields fastballs to lead off the third and fifth innings.

"They were throwing me a lot of breaking balls early and tried to come in late," Treanor said. "He smoked me with the first one. The first one hurt. You do what you have to do to get on base."

Treanor scored the Rangers' first run after being plunked in the third. He went to second on a groundout, took third on Elvis Andrus' single and scored on Shields' errant pickoff throw to first. Because the next batter, Michael Young, grounded out to short with one out, it was determined Treanor would have scored on that play, thus making it an earned run.

In the fifth, Treanor got hit again. Despite being forced out at second on the next at-bat, it helped keep the pressure on Shields, who didn't last the inning as Texas scored four runs to take a 5-0 lead.

"(The second time) was big more so because it led off the inning," Treanor said. "I think the whole feeling is if I hit the ball off the wall and rounded first and the throw is going to beat me to second so I stop, it's the same feeling for the team. We've got a guy on base, and we have the chance to build an inning."

By the numbers

2 Straight days shortstop Jason Bartlett led off the Rays' first with a single. Both times, the Rays failed to score.

9 Games this season in which the Rays have had two hits or fewer.

10 Run differential between the Rays and Rangers in the series (11-1).

35 Home runs James Shields has given up this season, including Ian Kinsler's in the fourth inning that made it 2-0.

431 Estimated distance of Michael Young's home run to centerfield off Chad Qualls in the fifth inning, 7 feet shorter than Nelson Cruz's homer in Game 1.

51-30 Rangers' record at home this season. . The Rays' Joe Maddon became the 44th person (15th manager) in playoff history ejected, when plate umpire Jim Wolf did so in the fifth.

The ejection came just after Michael Young hit a three-run homer off Chad Qualls. That came one pitch after first-base umpire Jerry Meals ruled Young checked his swing on what would have been strike three.

Maddon came out to the mound after the homer and quickly got into a shouting match with Wolf.

"For those of you who have been around for a couple months, we've had several of these moments occur," Maddon said. "This was a pretty big moment. I really thought he had been struck out."

Even Young said he believed he might get called out.

"It was a bit out of the (strike) zone. So at the last minute, I checked," Young said. "If he had rung me up, I would've walked back to the dugout and focused on defense like I usually do."

Qualls said it was nice to have Maddon defend him.

"I commend him for that," Qualls said. "He kind of stood up for me. He went up there and got thrown out of the game and tried to rally the troops a little bit."

This is the second time Qualls has been part of controversy since being acquired from Arizona on July 31. He was on the mound Sept. 15 when Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter claimed to get hit by a pitch that hit the knob of the bat.

"I told everybody if you want controversy on the mound, just put me on the mound," Qualls said. "It's been unbelievable this year for things like that to happen."

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