01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 15, 2004

BOSTON -- Maybe we should have seen this one coming.

Maybe the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, with the fourth-fewest wins in the American League, beating the red-hot Red Sox shouldn't have been too surprising. Not when you consider that Scott Kazmir was the Devil Rays' starting pitcher.

Who is Scott Kazmir?

Actually, that's part of the problem.

Kazmir is a rookie pitcher, and recent history has taught us that the Red Sox don't fare well against rookie pitchers. In fact, before last night, the Sox hadn't won a game (0-5) against a rookie whom they'd never before faced as a starter.

This morning, that number stands at 0-6, thanks to Kazmir.

Kazmir tossed six shutout innings, allowing just three hits while striking out nine. He joins the long list of unfamiliar pitchers who have beaten the Red Sox this season: Baltimore's Eric Bedard, San Francisco's Noah Lowery, Texas' Chris Young, and more recently, Seattle's Bobby Madritsch.

Turns out, the old saying isn't true: what you don't know, can hurt you. Just ask the Red Sox.

"It seems like a few of these new pitchers are getting the best of us," acknowledged Damon.

It's not the outfielder's imagination. Scouting reports and video can only help so much. Last night, they didn't help much at all.

The Sox' threats were so brief, if you blinked, you missed them. Johnny Damon worked a leadoff walk in the first but was gunned down trying to steal second.

In the second, the Sox had the bases loaded with one out, but Bill Mueller grounded into an inning-ending double play. Finally, in the fifth, Kevin Millar doubled and was joined on base by Orlando Cabrera, who walked. But Kazmir wouldn't be rattled, and bailed himself out of the inning by whirling around and picking Millar off second.

"The challenge," said Damon, "is not knowing what kind of pitch he's going to throw on a full count, not knowing every single pitch he has [in his repertoire]. We know a guy has a fastball and a changeup, but we don't always know if he has a cutter."

In this case, too little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

When hitters have faced a pitcher before, they get to know patterns. But facing a pitcher for the first time, there's a lot of guesswork, and the advantage is often with the pitcher.

So it was last night with Kazmir, the centerpiece of a deadline deal in which the Devil Rays sent Victor Zambrano to the New York Mets. At the time of the trade, Kazmir had never pitched above Double A.

In three previous starts for the Rays, Kazmir had been predictably inconsistent. In his first start, he tossed five shutout innings against Seattle, followed by a brutal outing against Oakland that saw him give up five runs in three innings. His third start was somewhere in the middle -- five innings pitched against Detroit, four runs allowed.

Last night was clearly his best outing yet. The Red Sox may have the best lineup he's faced in the big league, but they also clearly have difficulty with the unknown.

"You try to make sure you can see the ball," said catcher Jason Varitek, talking about his strategy in facing pitchers for the first time. "You want to find his release point more than anything."

Varitek was hitless, but hit the ball well two times, which is more than can be said for the rest of the Red Sox batting order. It wasn't until Kazmir left and the Tampa bullpen took over that the Red Sox got on the scoreboard.

The bad news for the Red Sox? They just may see Kazmir again in two weeks when the Sox travel to Florida to play the Devil Rays three times in the final week of the regular season.

The better news? They will already have seen him once, with a little history against him.