THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT - Scott Kazmir wanted to be the center of the biggest celebrations in Tampa Bay Rays history. His plans were derailed by two stunning homers from one of the most unlikely players.
Ramon Santiago homered twice off the Rays ace for his second and third career home runs since 2003 and the Detroit Tigers delayed Tampa Bay's AL East title with a 7-5 victory Thursday afternoon.
"My teammates were saying, 'Hey, it's Sammy Sosa!' But I kept telling them no," Santiago said. "It was fun, but I want to keep hitting line drives."
A Rays win would have clinched the division, and Boston beat Cleveland 6-1 on Thursday night to shave Tampa Bay's division lead to two games.
Ben Zobrist homered twice and drove in four runs for Tampa Bay. The Rays have already clinched the first playoff spot in the team's short history, but manager Joe Maddon wants them to go into October as division champs.
"Our goal at the beginning of this year was to win the American League East," Maddon said. "We still want to do that, and we want home-field advantage, because we play so well at the Trop."
Tampa led 1-0 early on Zobrist's first-inning homer, but Santiago led off both the bottom half of the first and third innings with homers off Kazmir. Santiago came into the game with only seven homers in a seven-season career, though he also homered twice in the same game since going deep off Pedro Martinez and Tim Wakefield on June 3, 2002.
"I just kept getting into a groove and then falling right back out of it," Kazmir said. "I never felt like I was in my comfort zone, and I wasn't throwing with any conviction."
Kazmir allowed four homers for the second time in three starts - the only times he's allowed four in a game in his career.
"I don't know what was happening there," Maddon said. "Normally, guys don't get good swings against Scott on 0-2 pitches, especially guys that don't have much power like Santiago."
The Rays were finishing up a grueling three-day stretch in which they played a doubleheader Tuesday against the Orioles, a night game Wednesday in Baltimore and a day game Thursday in Detroit.
