"James Shields was actually soaked with sweat, so much so that his jersey was a darker shade of gray than his pants. But if not for that proof, it would have been hard to tell if he had broken one as effortlessly as he dispatched the Astros in Friday night's 5-1 win on the way to his third consecutive complete game and majors-leading sixth of the season.

"He rolled through that lineup pretty good," said third baseman Evan Longoria, who supplied much of the support. "And that's a big-league lineup.

"It shouldn't look that easy."

But Shields made it that way, allowing only three hits, striking out nine and using only 106 pitches.

"What do you want me to say?" catcher Kelly Shoppach said. "It's ho-hum now."

Shields got all the help he would need in the third inning with a quick four-run blitz capped by Longoria (going sans batting gloves) and B.J. Upton hitting their first back-to-back homers of the season.

The win was the Rays' sixth in the past seven games, pushed their record to 42-34 — matching the high point of their season at eight games over .500 — and pulled them within 2½ games of first place in the American League East.

There are many ways to quantify just how good Shields has been, topped by the fact he's the first pitcher to have six complete-games win at this point of the season (76 team games) since 1997, when Pat Hentgen did so for Toronto."