Rays-Red Sox Preview

5/3/2008 11:56 PM

By MIKE LIPKA
STATS Writer

The Tampa Bay Rays were among baseball's biggest surprises in the season's first month, completing their first winning April in franchise history - and doing it without last year's team leader in wins, strikeouts and ERA.

Now, Scott Kazmir is back.

Sunday - weather permitting - the surprising Rays will begin to see how they look with their hard-throwing left-hander back at the front of the rotation, as Kazmir hopes to help visiting Tampa Bay avoid being swept by the Boston Red Sox.

Kazmir led the AL with 239 strikeouts last season, going 13-9 with a 3.48 ERA, but his 2008 debut was delayed after he strained his elbow while warming up in the early stages of spring training.

The 24-year-old will be on a pitch count of about 100 on Sunday, but otherwise he's at full strength - something the Red Sox were likely hoping would wait until their series was over. Given the forecast, they may not have to face him, as Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon reported a "100 percent chance of rain" in Boston Sunday.

Kazmir has shut down the Red Sox throughout his career, though he has struggled to earn wins against them. In six starts against Boston last year, Kazmir was just 1-3 despite a 2.78 ERA and three shutout outings of at least six innings.

In the last two years against the Red Sox, he has 82 strikeouts in just 62 2-3 innings, and in their careers, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are a combined 13-for-76 (.171) against him.

"I think I'll be all right," Kazmir said. "But like I've said before, with Fenway (Park) you are definitely going to have the adrenaline flowing."

Given Boston's offensive resurgence in the first two games of the series, Kazmir may wish he had returned a bit sooner. The Red Sox (19-13) have scored 19 runs in the last two games after totaling just four in their previous five contests.

They had just five runs as they were swept by the Rays (16-14) in St. Petersburg last weekend, but they had that many in just the first three innings of Saturday's 12-4 win.

Ortiz continued to work his way out of a prolonged slump by going 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBIs, Ramirez had two RBIs to end an 11-game drought without one and Josh Beckett pitched eight innings for Boston.

"They picked me up today," Beckett said of his teammates. "Offensively, obviously, with the number of runs and hits we had, but there were three or four great plays out in the outfield."

All it did was continue a long history of Rays' struggles in Boston. In the last five seasons, Tampa Bay's best record in a season at Fenway is 2-7.

Another 24-year-old left-hander will look to continue that trend, as Jon Lester takes the ball for the Red Sox on Sunday looking to build on his best start of the season.

Lester (1-2, 4.31 ERA) threw eight shutout innings against Toronto on Tuesday, allowing just one single, but he got a no-decision in Boston's 1-0 win. He's still looking for his first victory since April 2.

Lester made four starts against the Rays last year, with the Red Sox winning all four games despite his 5.56 ERA in those games. In the last two, he allowed nine runs and walked eight in just nine innings.

The Rays are trying to avoid a third straight loss after they had won eight of their previous nine games. Outfielder B.J. Upton could return Sunday after missing the first two games of the series with a shoulder problem.