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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Billy Koch may have had his Tampa Bay jersey on, but he never got the call.
The former Blue Jays closer, released by the team during spring training, was just a spectator last night, and although he didn't get into the game, it's hard to imagine he could have been any worse than the Devil Rays Seth McClung in the sixth inning.
The sixth was as embarrassing an inning as any major-league team could possibly suffer, as the Jays ripped McClung for five runs on four hits plus two walks with a sprinkling of messed up fielding plays tossed in to just lighten things up.
The inning was so bad that volatile Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella didn't even bother to go out and make a pitching change, perhaps knowing that with his famed temper, he might have slugged a player or two.
The Jays, who also received a gift run in the first when left fielder Eduardo Perez lost Reed Johnson's harmless pop up in the Teflon roof and had it plop behind him for a triple, took advantage of enough of Tampa's miscue's to emerge with a 6-3 victory.
But as bad as Tampa played, the game still required a clutch relief job in the seventh, when lefty Scott Schoeneweis got Julio Lugo to line out to left on a 3-2 pitch with runners on second and third.
Koch, who sat behind the Jays' bullpen and chatted with his former teammates during the second inning, also was a teammate of Schoeneweis when the two played for the White Sox last year.
"I heard someone shout 'Schoeneweis, you're a bum,' " Schoeneweis said. "I thought, 'I can't believe they're calling me a bum here.'
"It was Billy."
As for his big out, Schoeneweis would have preferred not to have run the count full.
"I fell behind and it wasn't the way I scripted it," he said.
"But it worked out."
On Monday, in the Jays' 5-2 victory, it was Schoeneweis who logged a couple of big outs in the eighth. He said he could go again tonight if asked.
"It's early, I feel fine," he said.
Last night's game actually was two games.
There was the opening five innings that featured a pitching duel between two young lefties in the Jays' Gustavo Chacin and the Rays Scott Kazmir.
Then there was the rest.
The Jays had a plan against Kazmir while the Rays didn't seem to have a clue about Chacin.
"We made him throw a lot of pitches and it worked out," Jays manager John Gibbons said of Kazmir, who had to leave after five innings and 89 pitches.
Chacin, meanwhile, was aces through five as he allowed just one run -- a solo shot by ex-Jay Alex Gonzalez -- on three hits.
"He looked like the guy we saw last year," Gibbons said of Chacin, who struggled this spring. "He made a couple of adjustments and (last night) he made his pitches."
The long top of the sixth ended Chacin's night and four relievers, with Miguel Batista closing it out, took it from there.
"They crawled back in but the bullpen did the job," Gibbons said.
The biggest sin last night would have been if the Rays had pulled it out.
"Losing?" Gibbons said.
"It never entered our mind."