Series Preview: Rays @ Sox

Tampa Bay Rays (16-12, t1st in AL East)
at Red Sox (17-13, t1st in AL East)
3 game series at Fenway Park

Game 1 Friday 705
Jackson (2-2, 3.86) vs. Buchholz (1-2, 4.08)
Game 2 Saturday 705
Shields (3-1, 2.54) vs. Beckett (2-2, 4.10)
Game 3 Sunday 135
Kazmir (NR) vs. Lester (1-2, 4.31)

What to watch for: battle for 1st place
I still cannot believe I am writing that phrase, but this series is indeed a battle for supremacy in the AL East. This is the latest in the season a Tampa Bay team has been 4 games over .500, and certainly the first time they have been in first place in the division, so it's safe to say this series is significantly important - to the Rays, at least.

Who to watch for: James Shields
The Rays righty was just named the AL Player of the Week for last week when he posted a 2-0 record with a 1.13 ERA. In 16 innings of work Shields struck out 12 batters and walked only 3 while allowing just 8 hits and 4 runs.

Included in those numbers is his 2-hit, 7K shutout of the Sox on Sunday. His rematch with Beckett on Saturday, who struck out 13 in that game, should be epic.

Preview:
Well it's finally here. The much-anticiapted battle between first place titans Boston and Tampa Bay gets underway tonight, and for once it will be Boston that will be looking for payback for what happened to it in the previous series.

You remember that series last weekend, don't you? You know, when the upstart Rays held the defending champion Red Sox to 5 runs in three games while sweeping the team from Beantown for the first time in Tampa Bay's 11-year history?

Luckily for me I don't recall most of it because I spent the entire weekend at my son's Little League tournament, and by the time I got home and heard about how the games went, I couldn't bring myself to watch the recordings. Well, just the important innings, and only on the two arrow (>>) fast forward mode.

But those who were able to attend the sold out games at the Trop, and the rest who watched on NESN, witnessed something never seen before in baseball history - the artists formerly known as the D-Rays bitchslap the BoSox.

Sure the games were close, and Boston could've won all three of them since Tampa Bay only scored 10 runs themselves, but it was the way Boston lost that signalled a possible changing of the guard in the tough AL East.

Tampa Bay's young pitchers threw the ball slightly better than Boston's seasoned hurlers, and the Rays batters came up with timely hits in key situations, such as Aki Iwamura's homer in the 8th inning Saturday off of Clay Buchholz that wound up being the game winner.

Those things combined with Tampa Bay's new attitude and belief that they can win every time they take the field has breathed new life into the franchise, and the series with the Sox, a team they have always played tough, but could never win enough games to make it an official rivalry.

Consider it an official rivalry now.

So much so that the Sox actually NEED to win at least 2 of 3 this weekend, both to distance themselves from the Rays in the standings, and also to set the spunky squad from St. Pete straight on who's still the team to beat in the division.

Should the Rays take a pair this weekend after that sweep, the confidence they would get from another series win, this time at Fenway, would be immeasurable. So the best thing to do would be the Sox return the favor and sweep the Rays right out of town and nip that growing confidence in the bud.

Thing is, they'll probably have to score some runs to do so.