Rocco Baldelli

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - His handshake could send you to the disabled list; that's how strong he is. But that strength no longer could translate to his limbs, and the fatigue he experienced was so severe that it ended the career of one of the great New England athletes. Rocco Baldelli had it all. He was a five-tool player. He could run with anyone - including Carl Crawford, a player he came up with through the Rays organization. He could hit, hit for power, and played center field as well as anyone in baseball, with a terrific arm. But little by little, what was first diagnosed...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - His handshake could send you to the disabled list; that's how strong he is. But that strength no longer could translate to his limbs, and the fatigue he experienced was so severe that it ended the career of one of the great New England athletes. Rocco Baldelli had it all. He was a five-tool player. He could run with anyone - including Carl Crawford, a player he came up with through the Rays organization. He could hit, hit for power, and played center field as well as anyone in baseball, with a terrific arm. But little by little, what was first diagnosed...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - His handshake could send you to the disabled list; that's how strong he is. But that strength no longer could translate to his limbs, and the fatigue he experienced was so severe that it ended the career of one of the great New England athletes. Rocco Baldelli had it all. He was a five-tool player. He could run with anyone - including Carl Crawford, a player he came up with through the Rays organization. He could hit, hit for power, and played center field as well as anyone in baseball, with a terrific arm. But little by little, what was first diagnosed as a mitochondrial...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - His handshake could send you to the disabled list; that's how strong he is. But that strength no longer could translate to his limbs, and the fatigue he experienced was so severe that it ended the career of one of the great New England athletes. Rocco Baldelli had it all. He was a five-tool player. He could run with anyone - including Carl Crawford, a player he came up with through the Rays organization. He could hit, hit for power, and played center field as well as anyone in baseball, with a terrific arm. But little by little, what was first diagnosed as a mitochondrial...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Devil Rays center fielder Rocco Baldelli will undergo right elbow ligament replacement surgery next week and will miss the rest of the season. Baldelli experienced soreness in his throwing elbow while taking part in a rehab program for offseason left knee surgery. He recently started playing in extended spring training games and had been scheduled to join Double A Montgomery Tuesday. "What a shame. Everything was going well with his knee," Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella said before last night's game against Milwaukee.

NEW YORK — B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford each drove in two runs in a seven-run sixth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays knocked around CC Sabathia in his much-anticipated rematch with David Price and beat the Yankees, 10-3, last night. Price (18-6) labored through six innings but Sabathia (20-7) struggled even more. The Rays beat New York for the second straight day, splitting the four-game set and pulling within a half-game of the Yankees in the AL East. The victory gave Tampa Bay a 10-8 season series edge — the first tiebreaker to decide the division if the teams are all square...

Tino Martinez and Rocco Baldelli homered to lead a rare Tampa Bay power surge and the Devil Rays ended the Orioles' five-game winning streak with a 7-3 victory at Camden Yards last night. Paul Abbott (2-1) allowed three runs and two hits in six innings. He was perfect through four innings, but walked the first two batters in the fifth before Jay Gibbons homered. The drive brought the Orioles to 7-3, but Baltimore got only three more hits after that. The Devil Rays ended a three-game skid in which they failed to get an extra-base hit. They ranked last in the AL in runs (43 in 12 games)

Magglio Ordonez homered and drove in five runs, and Jon Garland worked around bouts of wildness, leading the Chicago White Sox over the Yankees, 9-3, yesterday at New York. Joe Crede also homered for the White Sox and made a key play at third base. After his throw to first on a slow roller nipped Derek Jeter with the bases loaded to end the fourth, the White Sox scored nine runs in the next two innings. Garland (1-0) won despite issuing a career-high seven walks, including four in the fourth.

Jose Guillen and Adam Kennedy homered, leading Aaron Sele and the Anaheim Angels past New York, 11-2, last night at Yankee Stadium. Casey Kotchman broke the game open with a three-run double in the eighth inning as Anaheim scored five times for an 8-2 lead. The surging Angels have won 10 of 11 and have the best record in the American League at 23-11. The Yankees lost for only the third time in 14 games. They snapped Anaheim's nine-game winning streak Tuesday night, in a game that ended at 1:23 a.m. Guillen and Kennedy connected off Javier Vazquez (3-4)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Rocco Baldelli had a flight to catch, so he wasn't excited about the prospect of playing extra innings. The speedy Tampa Bay center fielder made two big defensive plays in the late innings and doubled before scoring the winning run yesterday in the Devil Rays' 6-5 come-from-behind victory over the New York Yankees. "He made two plays that I wanted to applaud myself," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "It was spectacular, what can you say?" In one of his best all-around performances since coming off the disabled list after...

NEW YORK — B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford each drove in two runs in a seven-run sixth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays knocked around CC Sabathia in his much-anticipated rematch with David Price and beat the Yankees, 10-3, last night. Price (18-6) labored through six innings but Sabathia (20-7) struggled even more. The Rays beat New York for the second straight day, splitting the four-game set and pulling within a half-game of the Yankees in the AL East. The victory gave Tampa Bay a 10-8 season series edge — the first tiebreaker to decide the division if the teams are all square after 162 games.

FORT MYERS, Fla. - He's dressing in Manny's locker, he's got Nomar's number, and he's enshrined in the Rhode Island Italian-American Hall of Fame, right there alongside Ernie DeGregorio. Oh, and his name is Rocco. How can he be anything but a fan favorite at Fenway Park? Rocco Baldelli is scheduled to make his Red Sox debut against big league competition today when the club takes its show up Route 75 to play the American League champion Rays in Port Charlotte. Nice symmetry there.

TORONTO - The Tampa Bay Rays' first meaningful September isn't going very well. As for Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun, he's just happy his miserable August is behind him. Zaun hit a game-ending grand slam in the 13th inning yesterday, enabling Toronto to beat the Rays, 7-4, and extend its season-high winning streak to seven. The Rays are 1-4 this month, allowing the Red Sox to nibble away at their lead in the AL East, but manager Joe Maddon isn't worried about his young team.

Rocco Baldelli hit his first homer in more than a year, Carlos Peña and Ben Zobrist also went deep, and the Tampa Bay Rays opened a weekend showdown in Chicago with a 9-4 victory over the White Sox last night. Chicago's Nick Swisher homered in his fourth straight game, giving the White Sox a 2-0 lead with a two-run shot in the fourth, but the Rays came back. Peña tied it at 2 with a leadoff homer in the sixth, and Jason Bartlett doubled in the go-ahead run off John Danks in the seventh, sending Tampa Bay to its eighth win in 11 games.

Bobby Crosby hit a two-run homer and Gio Gonzalez got his first major league win, helping the Athletics beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 2-1, last night in Oakland, Calif. Gonzalez pitched out of a couple of jams in five innings plus in his second career start and the A's won for the second time in their last 14 games to briefly derail the AL East-leading Rays, who lead the second-place Red Sox by three games. Jerry Blevins and Joey Devine combined to pitch three scoreless innings and Brad Ziegler got the final three outs for his second save in as many chances, running his scoreless streak to...

SEATTLE - Add another achievement to the Tampa Bay Rays' remarkable season: the return of outfielder Rocco Baldelli. Oh, and that franchise-record 71st victory was pretty significant too. Baldelli returned after missing more than a year, Willy Aybar homered twice, including a three-run shot, and Shawn Riggans added a three-run homer in the Rays' 11-3 rout of the Seattle Mariners yesterday. Tampa Bay bettered its previous best record of 70-92 in 2004. The Rays improved to 71-46 by taking three of four in Seattle and own a 4 1/2-game lead over Boston in the American League East,...

NEW YORK -- Paul Quantrill and Mariano Rivera made sure the New York Yankees held off Tampa Bay for the second straight night. Quantrill relieved Javier Vazquez with a two-ball count and the bases loaded in the sixth inning and escaped the jam, and New York beat the Devil Rays, 5-4, last night at Yankee Stadium. Rivera gave up a run in the ninth, then retired Rocco Baldelli on a foul popup with the bases loaded to end it. Jorge Posada hit a go-ahead, two-run single for the Yankees, who have won two straight against the Devil Rays after losing five of six to the New York Mets and Detroit.

SEATTLE - Add another achievement to the Tampa Bay Rays' remarkable season: the return of outfielder Rocco Baldelli. Oh, and that franchise-record 71st victory was pretty significant too. Baldelli returned after missing more than a year, Willy Aybar homered twice, including a three-run shot, and Shawn Riggans added a three-run homer in the Rays' 11-3 rout of the Seattle Mariners yesterday. Tampa Bay bettered its previous best record of 70-92 in 2004. The Rays improved to 71-46 by taking three of four in Seattle and own a 4 1/2-game lead over Boston in the American League East,...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- On a night when Alex Rodriguez lost his 23-game hitting streak and New York tumbled into last place, the Yankees searched for positives to take away from their longest losing streak in nearly two years. "We can't point fingers. We're still in this together," Johnny Damon said last night after Tampa Bay pitching cooled off A-Rod and Carl Crawford's first career grand slam rallied the Devil Rays to a 6-4 victory. The Yankees (8-11) went 0-5 on a trip that began with three losses at Boston, their longest losing streak since a six-game slide from May 28 to June 3, 2005.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Rocco Baldelli had a flight to catch, so he wasn't excited about the prospect of playing extra innings. The speedy Tampa Bay center fielder made two big defensive plays in the late innings and doubled before scoring the winning run yesterday in the Devil Rays' 6-5 come-from-behind victory over the New York Yankees. "He made two plays that I wanted to applaud myself," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "It was spectacular, what can you say?" In one of his best all-around performances since coming off the disabled list after...