Rays' 2008 season serves as guide for slumping Padres

BOSTON -- The Rays remember what it was like.

It's not that long ago that they were what the Padres are now, the first-place team that might not make it to the finish line, the first-place team still trying to establish that it deserved to be a first-place team in the first place.

"I think everyone was waiting for us to falter," reliever Dan Wheeler said, thinking back exactly two years.

The 2008 Rays never lost 10 in a row, the way the Padres had, going into Monday night. But the Rays lost seven in a row heading into the All-Star break, and manager Joe Maddon said the extra days off made it feel like 10.

The Padres pray they can bounce back after overcoming a 10-game losing streak. (AP)

And when the Rays came to Fenway Park early that September holding a slim lead over the defending champion Red Sox, Tampa Bay was in another slide that would see the Rays lose six of seven and nearly lose the division lead. That six of seven felt so serious that two years later, Maddon said Monday afternoon, "We had two seven-game losing streaks that year."

The Rays have had no seven-game losing streaks this year, and even the current three-gamer (after Monday's 12-5 loss to the Red Sox) feels more like an annoyance than a reason to think that the Rays are in any trouble.

Nobody's waiting for the Rays to falter. Nobody believes there's much chance they'll falter, with a wild-card lead that stands at six games over the White Sox and 6½ over the Red Sox.

Because of what they did in 2008, and because of what they've been for three years' running, we think of the Rays differently now than we did then.

We think of the Rays differently than we do the Padres.

"Pepe's going through it," Maddon said, referring to Padres manager Bud Black. "That's a tough one. I'm hoping they pull out of it. I'm certain that they will. But it's tough."

Maddon's own concerns right now are relatively minor ones, like getting Jeff Niemann (at the moment, probably his fourth or fifth starter) straightened out. Niemann, who gave up six runs and didn't make it out of the second inning Monday night, has a 20.03 ERA in three starts since spending three weeks on the disabled list with a right shoulder strain.

"We've got to get our starters in order," Maddon said, pointing also to subpar outings by James Shields and Wade Davis over the weekend in Baltimore.

There was no hint of tension in Maddon's voice, and not a single question about whether this is any kind of dangerous trend. Not that there shuld have been, but it still tells you a lot about the way we think of the Rays now, in 2010.

The standings are obviously a big part of it, and even a six-game wild-card lead with 25 games left relieves a lot of the pressure. As much as Maddon talks of wanting to finish ahead of the Yankees and win the division ("It's not about staying ahead of the Red Sox, it's about catching the Yankees," he said), he and his players obviously understand that there's little penalty for finishing second.

Even the prospect of losing home-field advantage for a potential second-round series with the Yankees doesn't do much to scare a Rays team that has played almost as well on the road (40-28) as at home (43-26).

"I think we've learned to win on the road," center fielder B.J. Upton said. "I don't think that would be as much of a factor [as in 2008]."

Two years ago, everything felt like a big factor, including the Rays' inability -- at the time -- to win at Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. The Rays lost their first seven games at Fenway in 2008, which is one reason so many players in their clubhouse have such vivid memories of that September visit.

They remember the huge Dan Johnson home run off Jonathan Papelbon, and the 14-inning win the next night.

Mostly, they remember the feeling of having finally proven that they truly belonged where they were.

"We knew we were a good team," Upton said. "But that kind of put it in stone."

Maybe the Padres have that kind of moment this week. Maybe they find a way to push back when challenged, the way the 2008 Rays pushed back.

"At that time, everybody was waiting for us to fail," Maddon said. "You had no history to bank on of success, so naturally the thought process was going to lead to, 'That's it, they're going to go away now.'"

"For us to be able to fight through those moments really was important, not just at the time, but as we moved down the road."

He'd love to take that feeling now and hand it to Black and the Padres, but neither Maddon nor the Rays players can offer much more than the usual clichés to explain how they did it back then.

They talk of the influence of the veterans, of Cliff Floyd and Troy Percival and Eric Hinske. They talk of keeping the right approach and the right belief.

"I think it's circling the wagons," Maddon said. "It's how you believe as a group, because you're going to hear all this other stuff, that the other shoe's going to drop, that everything's going to fall off the face of the earth.

"If you start reading that, things can get in your head."

Two years ago, they did it, and two years later, they don't hear the same other stuff.

Now that other stuff is 3,000 miles west. Now it's in San Diego, with Maddon's friend and one-time colleague on the Mike Scioscia's Angels coaching staff.

Now it's Pepe's problem.