Even at This Point, the Rays Have More to Offer

Seven outs from the World Series, Tampa Bay players take a look as Thursday's potential pennant-clincher at Fenway Park starts to slip away. (By Jim Mcisaac -- Getty Images)

Tampa Bay's real signature is pitching. If there is luck in the Rays' season, it is the complete health of their original Opening Day rotation. Those five men started 153 games. By contrast, the Nats got 105 starts and the Orioles only 94 from their season-opening rotations.

Many now expect the Rays to fold after being so close to a pennant. But they probably won't. They didn't expect such a chance, so they don't have the built-in sadness of a team that nursed a pennant dream for years. In fact, one of the Rays' first reactions to their loss was: Hey, now we get to clinch at home. Maybe they're too young to worry about goat horns. Instead, they think they're one win from heroism.

Most important, the Rays have two healthy power pitchers on tap with extra rest in James Shields and Mike Garza. Turn up the heat. Meanwhile, the Red Sox' Game 6 starter, Josh Beckett, must go old school, pitching hurt.

If Thursday's comeback from a 7-0 deficit had happened in a World Series, the winner might carry forward some mystique. But the Rays and Bosox know each other so ridiculously well (Tampa Bay leads their 23 meetings this year 13-10), that nothing about the other surprises either of them.

If anything, it is the Red Sox who have seemed impressed in this ALCS by their first look at an entirely healthy Rays offense with Crawford now back. The Red Sox, by contrast, don't even bother to hide how aware they are of the loss of Mike Lowell's key bat.

The Rays still have a long road ahead. But, until they are knocked out, they're the story of this October. If they reach the end of it victorious, then recovering from the Red Sox' mighty haymaker to the jaw Game 5 at Fenway will just become part of their confidence-building lore, their story of improbability stacked on top of fantasy.

Boston, after adoring its Idiots in '04, surely knows the look of a team of destiny. If the Rays win just one game in the Trop this weekend, they won't merely capture a pennant. They may enter the World Series feeling bulletproof.

No matter which way this ALCS ends, it's now guaranteed to be a classic vintage, down to the final drop.