While Tampa Bay Devil Rays teammates Evan Longoria and B.J. Upton may have been in each others face in the dugout during last night’s 2-1 loss at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks, they certainly weren’t seeing eye to eye.

In the fifth inning, Arizona’s Rusty Ryal drove a ball to left-center field.  Upton, who was shaded towards right-center, could not catch up to the ball.  It landed near the wall and B.J. chased after it, however, it didn’t appear that he was moving with a true sense of urgency.  Ryal ended up with a triple, but Upton’s relaxed effort ended up not making a difference as Gerardo Parra followed with a two-run homer.  But if there was a possibility that Upton could have limited Ryal to a double, it could have made a huge impact on a game that was scoreless at the time.

The fiasco continued to fester in the bottom of the inning.  Longoria, who was dissatisfied with Upton’s apparent lack of hustle, let him know about it.  And Upton’s reaction was that of a person who was just waiting for someone to chastise him about it.  He lashed back at Longoria, yelling in his face, and ultimately had to be restrained by Willy Aybar.

The whole incident had the look of a confrontation that was long overdue.  It almost seems as though there have been some side conversations about players on the team…maybe even some cliques developing within the organization.  In an atmosphere that is conduciove to winning, ever player has to be open and approachable – yet somehow the Rays have allowed their clubhouse to fall victim to the poor performance on the diamond.

Tampa Bay's centerfielder B.J. Upton's frustration reached a boiling point when he was confronted by Longoria.

Baseball is one of the rare sports in which there is relatively no excuse for not giving full effort on the field.  Position players get to take plays off throughout the game.  So, barring injury, the urgency should allows be there.  Unlike, basketball or football, every player is solely responsible for his own performance or success.  In other team sports, the strengths and/or weaknesses of players have a direct affect their teammates – whether it be positive or negative.

The bottom line is that it becomes obvious when a baseball player is not fully focused on the game.  A talk between Upton and Devil Rays’ manager Joe Maddon is probably well overdue, and Maddon should hesitate to bring the rest of the Rays into the meeting as well.  If Tampa Bay has any hope of rekindling its early season success, it needs to resolve its differences as a team – and not isolate and single-out individuals.

Maddon has indicated the he will be meeting with Upton.  The centerfielder has been relegated to the bench on other occasions for failing to hustle, and it has yet to be decided if that trend will continue.

Whatever the case, the matter needs to be dealt with so that the Devil Rays won’t continue to sting one another with their words and actions.

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