"There wasn't any question that Evan Longoria returned to the Rays on Tuesday healthy. The way he bounded down the dugout stairs seconds after the 3-2 win over the Blue Jays, filled a towel with chocolate whipped cream and raced back up to smear it in B.J. Upton's face while Upton was still doing the postgame interview with Todd Kalas pretty much took care of that.

"I saw him on the monitor, but it was too late for me to do anything," Upton said. "So I just stood there and wore it. What are you going to do at that point? He was pretty quick."

Upton enjoyed the unexpected taste treat — "Better to have in your mouth than shaving cream" — and he deserved it, hitting a two-run walkoff homer in the ninth to give the Rays (16-13) an unexpected victory before 10,248, the second-smallest crowd of the season.

For most of the night, the Rays looked like they did in the two games before Longoria went on the disabled list for a month with a strained left oblique: one run, a handful of hits and headed to defeat.

But, moments after the Lightning final score was flashed on the Trop scoreboard, they rallied, and almost as suddenly.

Ben Zobrist, having battled to a full count, sliced a single to left. Two pitches later, Upton ripped Jon Rauch's fastball 394 feet and over the leftfield wall.

"That seems to be the Tampa Bay way," said Upton, who has a Lightning No. 2 jersey hanging in his locker.

So, too, is getting contributions from unheralded players. Reliever Brandon Gomes, called up somewhat unexpectedly, made an impressive big-league debut, working a scoreless, and near-perfect, seventh and eighth.

"It was all made possible by Brandon Gomes," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "He did a hell of a job. … Those two innings he was really, really good." "