So much for home field advantage, eh? Playing in front of a packed house – an electric announced crowd of 41,845 – the Tampa Bay Rays once more displayed a neutered offense and fell to Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers 1-5. The ace lefty struck out 11 Rays batters and yielded a single earned run on six hits allowed. Tampa Bay’s David Price was not up to the task once more, yielding three runs on eight hits while striking out six men.

Here’s the thing: did Price have such a horrible outing? No, not by any means. It’s certainly not what fans have come to expect from the talented young lefty, but he still offered his team ample opportunity to win. Closer Rafael Soriano, far from his best and likely in his last appearance as a Ray, yielded a leadoff single in the ninth inning and a home run to Ian Kinsler for the other two Texas runs. Until that point, this game was never out of hand, and yet the Rays were still never in it. Jason Bartlett had, by far, the best game of anyone wearing Tampa Bay blues; JB went 3-for-4 with two singles and a double. Sean Rodriguez picked up a one-out base hit in the third inning and eventually was singled home by Ben Zobrist for the only run scored (of the Rays’ three American League Division Series home games, Zobrist notched the only two RBIs).

The difference in this series came down to approach.

This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2010.