By Thomas Boswell
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The last week of September in Baltimore, Tampa Bay Manager Joe Maddon leaned on the batting cage in Camden Yards and spun a fantasy. His Rays, the absolutely worst team in baseball in '07, would ignore the impulse to relax after making the playoffs for the first time in their history just two days before and, instead, "keep the pedal down" to finish ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East.
"We don't even want to give up on catching the Angels for the best record in the league," Maddon said.
"Why?" I asked. Didn't his players, after nine last-place finishes and one next-to-last in their 10-season existence, deserve rest after such overachieving brilliance?
"We want to play at the Trop," said Maddon of dingy, doomed, deafening Tropicana Field, where the Rays built the best home record (57-24) since the Yankees of '98. They were even better -- 21-2 -- when they had crowds of more than 30,000. "We want home field all the way through."
"Oh, all the way through the World Series?" I asked.
Maddon just grinned. You don't talk about such things. But now it's one step closer. The Rays clinched the AL East with a day of rest to spare and piled up 97 wins. That gave them the home-field edge against the White Sox, whom they went on to beat twice at the Trop and eliminate in four games.
Meanwhile, the Rays got their second wish, too. "Let the Red Sox beat the Angels for us," one Rays coach said. Now, that's happened, too. The Rays know the Red Sox inside out, respect them, but don't fear them after winning their season series 10-8, including an 8-0 record at the Trop with crowds of more than 30,000.
"We played them back-to-back series [in September] with the division title at stake. We lost the first game both times, but won both series," said right-hander James Shields, who is scheduled to start Game 1 of the ALCS. "We've played big games in Fenway and handled it."
Finally, if the Rays should reach the Series, they have home field there as well, thanks to the AL's victory in the All-Star Game. How do the teams in the NLCS play on the road? The Phils (44-37) were solid this season but the Dodgers (36-45) were lousy. So if you're rabid about the Rays, root for L.A.
No sane person would pick the Rays to win the Series. No team with the game's worst record has done it the following season. The closest were the '91 Twins, who were last in their division in '90 but, with 74 wins, were far from the game's worst team. The next season, the Twins won the Series. How? By going 5-1 at home, including all four Series wins in their dingy, domed, deafening Hump.
All season, baseball has waited for the Cubs, petted the Cubs and gotten ready to celebrate their first World Series win in 100 years. Oh, the Cubs, Cubs, Cubs. Now, their sweep by the Dodgers has a different twist. Just as the Rays now don't have to play the 100-win Angels, they won't meet the 97-win Cubs, either. The sport's two best regular season teams have disappeared from their path.
So forget the Cubs and the dead-dynasty Yankees. Rejoice that the sport's top three teams in payroll, including the Tigers and Mets, didn't even make the playoffs. In the division series, the Nos. 5-6-7 teams in payroll were eliminated, too. The result: The ludicrously low-budget Rays, next-to-last in salary, are in the final four with the Phils (13th) and the young Dodgers (eighth), who may be almost as stage-struck if they make the Series as Tampa Bay.
The problem with all this is the extremely uncooperative Red Sox. To many, including me, Boston's walk-off, 3-2 win on Monday night to eliminate the Angels felt a bit like a surreptitious coronation. Was that win -- aided by Mike Scioscia's disastrous decision to blow up a ninth-inning rally with a failed suicide bunt -- really the rough equivalent of the last game of the '08 World Series?
After all, when the defending champs beat the rival with the best regular season mark, then merely have to best a scruffy underdog like the Rays, then thump the demonstrably Inferior League in the Series, isn't it time to cue the Duck Boats for that parade to Boston Common?
Yes, usually it works out something like that. But this time, there are twists. The Rays just got back their best-known player, swift and powerful outfielder Carl Crawford, a career .296 hitter who's stolen 50 bases four times but missed 53 games this year. Meanwhile, Boston will be without sore-hipped Mike Lowell, the '07 World Series MVP.
So no Manny RamÃrez, no Lowell, Josh Beckett with a nagging side muscle and Daisuke Matsuzaka (18-3) driving everybody crazy using 100 pitches to work five innings.
That evens things up a bit, but only somewhat. Both teams have deep, talented bullpens, but Boston has Jonathan Papelbon (41 saves) at the back end while the Rays mix and match while calling humble Dan Wheeler their closer. The Rays have a rookie, Evan Longoria, batting cleanup. The Red Sox have David Ortiz.
The problem with a grand plan is that, if it goes wrong, then things can unwind in a hurry. What if the Rays don't win the first two games in Tampa Bay? What if Jon Lester just shuts them down at the Trop, including their running game, as he did against the running Angels? Will the Rays panic?
The Rays beat the Red Sox over 162 games, though few believed it even as they watched it. Now, with the stakes raised, don't dismiss Tampa Bay out of hand. All season, the Rays had to make do with almost every starting player injured at one time or another. Since Opening Day, they've never been as healthy as they are now.
Get ready for the fun. It's too bad the Cubs couldn't come. Those screams? Milton might say it's the Cubs being "hurled headlong flaming from the eternal sky with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition." The wrath on the North Side runs deep.
But why waste so much sympathy for the Cubs? What about the Phillies? They've won only one World Series -- 1980 -- in their entire history, which began in 1883. That's 1 for 125 years.
At least we know where we stand. The Red Sox, despite their miseries over the generations, and Dodgers, though they haven't won a Series in 20 years, are still among the game's blue bloods.
The Phils, the only team that ever commemorated its 10,000th defeat, and the Rays, who, until this season, never had a single victory worth celebrating, would make an ideal World Series marriage.
Unlikely, granted. But perfect, and to be wished, nonetheless.
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