playoff series

LOS ANGELES -- If you're looking for that one moment the Dodgers turned their season around. That one trade, that one signing that one managerial decision that transformed this bunch from playoff outsiders to the first team to advance to the Championship Series you won't find it.

Tampa Bay's Carlos Pena was scratched from the lineup for Game 2 of the Rays' first-round playoff series against the Chicago White Sox because of slightly blurred vision in his left eye Friday.

The slugger, who led the AL East champions with 31 homers and 102 RBIs this season, scratched his cornea at home Wednesday and was removed from Game 1 of the series after two innings on Thursday.

In the first game of the first playoff series in the still nascent history of professional baseball in Tampa Bay, the Rays did what they have done all season long.

They got a better-than-good start from "Big Game" James Shields. Their bullpen overpowered. The Rays hit when they had to -- and a little more than that, courtesy of first-year phenom Evan Longoria -- they played flawless defense and, in the end, they won again, too.