Sonnanstine, Rays take down Cardinals 3-1

ST. LOUIS — There had to be something Andy Sonnanstine didn't do Friday.

The Rays got through the first quarter of the season with the best record in the American League using a combination of good pitching and defense and timely hitting.

Friday, in their first game under National League rules, Sonnanstine handled it all.

He pitched, he fielded, he hit, he bunted, he ran the bases.

And he led the Rays to a 3-1 victory over the Cardinals.

"He was Mr. Everything tonight," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "It was the Sonny show. That's all it was."

With the Red Sox rained out, the Rays (25-17) extended their lead in the American League East to 1½ games and moved eight games over .500 for the first time in franchise history.

They also enjoyed the atmos­phere of their first visit to St. Louis, playing in a picturesque ballpark on a perfect spring night in a real baseball town, with a crowd of 43,136, more than twice as many as they drew for any of their four games with the Yankees.

On the mound, Sonnanstine was dominating.

He took a shutout into the eighth before allowing a homer to Chris Duncan, went to a three-ball count only once while throwing just 22 balls among 98 pitches, used only four pitches in the seventh inning and didn't let mighty Albert Pujols hit the ball out of the infield in snapping his 42-game streak of reaching base and his 14-game hitting streak.

At the plate, he was dazzling.

He went 2-for-3, hitting left-handed and rapping a pair of opposite-field line-drive singles, both with two strikes, that led to runs — scoring the first after advancing on a wild pitch — and dropped a nifty sacrifice bunt.

He improved his record to 6-1 while lowering his ERA to 4.53 and raising his career batting average to .500.

"Gets down a bunt, runs the bases, two knocks, pitches eight innings, gives up one point, gives up a bomb and then strikes out Pujols and on the next hitter gets (Rick) Ankiel on a ground ball," Maddon said. "I mean, c'mon, he couldn't have had a better night. He could not. Could not have done anything better tonight."

Sonnanstine, typically, was nonplussed. He joked that he is "a man of many of talents," but otherwise played it pretty straight.

He pitched well because he relied predominantly on his fastball, had the added benefit of an usually good changeup and credited Troy Percival, who worked the ninth for his 11th save, for helping with a strong game plan against a dangerous lineup.

The key was sticking to the fastball.

"One hundred percent,'' said Sonnanstine, now 11-3 in his past 18 starts.

Despite being a good enough hitter to be recruited to Kent State as a "shortstop slash pitcher," he described his offensive approach as "see ball, hit ball" with some good fortune mixed in.

But the Rays know better. Percival, who made it interesting with some long outs in the ninth, raved about Sonnanstine's makeup.

"I like his competitiveness out there," Percival said. "Even when he gets to the plate, gets two strikes, battles a great at-bat and gets a knock.

"Having a guy on the mound who's competitive is better than having a guy with great stuff sometimes."

Marc Topkin can be reached at topkin@sptimes.com. See his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/rays.