Rays Put Away Red Sox
Tampa Bay Advances to World Series: Rays 3, Red Sox 1

By Dave Sheinin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 20, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 19 -- Sleep, precious sleep, had been hard to come by for the tormented Tampa Bay Rays. If it wasn't being stolen by 1 a.m. finishes, 2 a.m. flights or 5 a.m. arrivals on the other end of the East Coast, it was being destroyed by the demon that had been unleashed upon their souls three nights earlier in Boston. In their nightmares, the Rays were always seven outs from the World Series, but held back by a sinister form with a hairy face and red socks.

Some time in the wee hours Monday, then, 25 heads, full of champagne haze, hit 25 pillows and slept the sleep of honest men. The Boston Red Sox were vanquished, finally and completely, and the Rays, the once lowly Rays, had made it to the World Series after all.

A harrowing 3-1 victory in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series got them there. It came before 40,473 believers at Tropicana Field, who stood screaming, ringing cowbells, periodically throughout the night and constantly during the pivotal eighth inning, when a rookie left-hander came on and saved the night.

Game 1 of the World Series, the Rays against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies, will be Wednesday night, in this gray-slab concrete dome where the Rays spent a solid, horrific decade of losing -- until this year.

"I don't have words to describe what I'm feeling right now," said first baseman Carlos Peña, the only over-30 player in the Rays' starting lineup. "This is beautiful, a perfect story. It was difficult, but it makes it sweeter doing it for the home crowd."

The pile of bodies, when the final out was in the glove of second baseman Akinori Iwamura, formed around the 6-foot-6 body of David Price.

At several points late in the game, it seemed to be careening out of control again for the Rays, the demon returning. But then into the game, with two outs in the eighth and the bases loaded, strode Price, a rookie left-hander -- their mystery pitcher, used only twice before in this postseason -- who redeemed a reeling bullpen and secured the final four outs with preternatural poise and 97-mph heat.

"I'm still shaking right now," Price said, minutes after the final out, still standing on the mound.

For all their many accomplishments in a remarkable worst-to-first season, the Rays were perilously close to being remembered forever as the team that was seven outs from the World Series in Game 5 -- with a seven-run lead, no less -- and somehow found a way to lose both the game and the series. The trauma was almost too much to bear.

In other words, the Rays had no business winning Game 7, which, by the twisted logic of this series, meant they surely would.

Perhaps because he had already witnessed too many bullpen meltdowns the past few nights, Rays Manager Joe Maddon sent starter and series MVP Matt Garza back to the mound for the eighth, having thrown 116 pitches while holding the Red Sox to two hits. But pitch No. 118 became a routine grounder to shortstop that the slick-fielding Jason Bartlett booted for an error. Garza's night was over, his proud walk to the dugout punctuated by a tip of the cap in response to thunderous applause.

"I went out there and emptied my tank," Garza said, "and said, 'Hey, here goes. We'll see what happens.' "

Into the game jogged Dan Wheeler, the first of four Rays relievers in the inning, as Maddon wore a path to the mound through the spongy artificial turf. Some of the moves worked, others didn't. But all that mattered was the last one -- Price, with all of seven big league appearances to his credit, who got the ball with the bases loaded and two outs, protecting a two-run lead, and struck out J.D. Drew on a 97-mph fastball.

With no one warming behind him as the Rays batted in the eighth, the message was clear -- the ninth inning belonged to Price.

"That's pretty heady stuff for a guy who was in college a year ago," Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey said of Price, a No. 1 overall pick from Vanderbilt in 2007. "Once he ended the eighth inning, we were going to send him back out for the ninth."

Never before had two pitchers so young squared off in the seventh game of an LCS, and the duel between Boston's Jon Lester and Tampa Bay's Garza, both 24, delighted and awed. By the time the seventh-inning stretch was sung, to a soundtrack of cowbells, Garza had just thrown his 116th pitch to escape a two-on jam, after first sending his mound-visiting manager back to the dugout with a clear message:

"You ain't taking me out of this game," Garza told him. "'This is my game and I'm going to finish it off.'"

Lester, meantime, was about to make one last fateful walk to the mound. Up 2-1, the Rays tacked on an extra run when Willy Aybar connected on a misplaced cut fastball from Lester, posing at home plate as the ball sailed into the left field stands. It was 3-1, six outs to go, and it was almost time to send the carts full of champagne into the clubhouse again.

There would be one more harrowing inning, the interminable eighth, but this time, thanks largely to Price, it ended the way Game 5 should have, with the Rays finishing the job.

In the end, the Red Sox were still short by . . . something. Despite Lester's Game 7 effort, their starting pitchers posted just a 7.67 ERA. Despite David Ortiz's three-run homer that launched the Game 5 comeback, the big guy hit just .154 in the series. And despite Coco Crisp's eighth-inning single, Boston's leadoff hitters batted a combined .194 and drew only two walks.

"We played as hard as we could," said Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who hit a first-inning solo home run. "I guess we just ran out of magic."