ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. | Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon is a little bit different. He doesn&#8217;t just talk about the many books he reads; he talks about the authors too. He will not just say that he&#8217;s a Bruce Springsteen fan or that he likes the &#8220;Godfather&#8221; movies. No, he will recite lyrics and talk at length about his favorite scenes. He doesn&#8217;t do anything halfway.</p><p>Ask him why his defense uses the most extreme shifts in all of baseball, and he won&#8217;t just speak in cliches. He will tell you that he wants his team challenging that hitter.</p><p>&#8220;If you looked at a spreadsheet chart,&#8221; he says, &#8220;and you notice that balls are not hit in a certain area, why cover it? And if that&#8217;s where the hitter likes to hit, then why not make him think about it?&#8221;</p><p>Why not? In the ninth inning Thursday, with two outs, with Tampa leading Philadelphia 4-2, the Phillies&#8217; slugger Ryan Howard came to the plate. A home run would tie the game. And as Howard stepped to the plate, he saw all four of the Rays infielders move to the right side of the infield. Every defense shifts against Howard, but this was drastic.</p><p>And Howard banged a ground ball smack into the shift, ending the game.</p><p>That tells you all about Joe Maddon&#8217;s Rays. There is nothing tentative about them, nothing cautious or timid. A team doesn&#8217;t go from the worst record in baseball to the best by playing it safe. No, Maddon moves players in and out, and shakes up the lineup like Yahtzee dice.</p><p>He came into an organization that had never won, had no idea how to win, had never won even 75 games in a season. He had to change it all.</p><p>&#8220;I thought we were totally a low-trust organization,&#8221; he says. &#8220;There was no accountability whatsoever. There was no consistency from what I can gather. &#8230; It&#8217;s about accountability, consistency, trust, those are the factors that permit you, in a relationship to turn it into something good.&#8221;</p><p>But everybody talks about doing these things. Every Royals manager for 15 years has talked about changing the culture, developing trust, demanding accountability. The thing is, it takes imagination to do it, and it takes a deep belief in yourself.</p><p>Take Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. He had a terrific rookie year, but he has looked shaky lately. Maddon became convinced that he was trying too hard, and every manager in baseball will tell you that&#8217;s one of the toughest challenges for a manager, getting a player to relax. It&#8217;s much easier to get a player to work harder.</p><p>So Maddon walked over and invited Longoria to his wedding in the offseason. He hoped that might loosen the kid up. It didn&#8217;t. Longoria struggled again Thursday night. And Maddon shrugged.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll just have another fireside chat with him,&#8221; Maddon said.</p><p>And that&#8217;s how he manages games. He knows he will get through. He won&#8217;t always get through the first time. But he will get through. He spent 30 years in the Angels organization as a minor-league player, a minor-league manager, a coach in the big leagues, and he read every book he could find, he talked to everybody would talk to him, he thought a lot about things. He was getting ready for this.</p><p>Now, the Rays represent the way he wants to play baseball. And it&#8217;s interesting because Maddon&#8217;s way is not necessarily about a certain baseball style. Sure, he wants the team to play good defense. He harps on fundamentals like every other manager in the league. He likes to use his team&#8217;s speed and put pressure on other teams. But, again, everybody likes doing those things.