(Sports Network) - Right-hander James Shields can reach double-digit wins for the third straight season tonight when the playoff-doused Tampa Bay Rays return home to begin a three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays at Tropicana Field.

The defending American League champions saw their chances at a repeat all but mathematically erased on an 11-game road trip, which yielded a 2-9 record and briefly dropped them back to .500 before a Thursday night win in Baltimore.

Overall, they've lost 13 of 15 games.

As a result, the Rays have dropped to fifth in the chase for the AL's wild card berth, 13 games behind front-running Boston, and trail the Yankees by 20 games in the AL's East Division, which they won last season en route to a World Series appearance.

Shields, who won 14 times in 33 starts for Tampa Bay in 2008, again tries for win No. 10 this season.

He's been foiled in two previous tries, getting a no-decision in the team's 8-6 loss to Detroit on September 5 and losing a 4-0 verdict to the Red Sox on Sunday.

His last win was August 31 against the Tigers, when he scattered 10 hits and allowed four earned runs in seven innings of an 11-7 triumph.

Shields last faced Toronto on August 25 and won a 7-3 decision, improving him to 5-4 in 12 career starts against the Blue Jays.

He is 4-6 in 16 home starts this season.

For Toronto, Canadian-born right-hander Scott Richmond tries again to end a drought that stretches back to late June.

The 30-year-old British Columbia product was 6-4 after an 8-2 interleague defeat of Cincinnati at Rogers Centre, but has gone 0-5 in eight subsequent appearances, including a no-decision against Detroit in his last outing on Saturday.

He dropped a 4-1 verdict to the Rays on June 30 in Toronto, in what turned out to be game one of the winless stretch.

Lifetime against Tampa Bay, he is 0-2 in two starts with a 4.38 earned run average across 12 1/3 innings.

Richmond is 3-4 away from home this season, posting a 5.46 ERA in 62 2/3 road innings.

On Wednesday in New York, Francisco Cervelli's RBI single with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning sent the Yankees past Toronto, 5-4, in the finale of a two-game set.

Brett Gardner began the ninth against Jason Frasor (6-3) with a single, then stole second. Derek Jeter's grounder to short moved him to third, and with the infield drawn in, Cervelli's low liner got through the hole at short to score the winning run.

Adam Lind knocked in a pair while Jose Bautista homered and Rod Barajas added an RBI for the Blue Jays, who have dropped three of four.

Tampa has dominated this season series, winning 11 of the 15 meetings.





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