Just what in the world does a team have to do to dispatch these pesky Red Sox?

SCOTT JACOBS

The thrill of victory. The agony of blowing a seven run lead. Tampa Bay was so close.

Up 7-0 in the top of the seventh, just nine outs away from the most improbable turnaround in recent sports history, the Rays instead watched their inevitable World Series berth become history.

In what felt like a blink of the eye.

7-0. In football, that lead is nothing, but in baseball it’s a brutal blow to a team too young and stupid to know what they’ve got themselves into. But now, its real. “Like it or not that baby’s coming,” said Paul Rudd in Knocked Up. Well, Tampa Bay, like it or not the Red Sox have awoken, and it’s going to take one heck of an effort to once and for all slay the comeback machine that has become the Red Sox.

Scott Kazmir was brilliant, hurling six innings of two hit ball, but it was the Rays bullpen that blew it. Grant Balfour gave up four runs on four hits in just two thirds of an inning. Then Dan Wheeler, who did not have his stuff tonight, gave up three hits and three runs in an inning and a third, the dagger coming with Coco Crisp’s base hit with two out in the seventh and a man on second. And just like that, Tampa Bay’s lead was gone.

The Rays, who I expected to fold up like a lawn chair, and fall apart, put men on first and second in the ninth, but with one out the Rays grounded into a devastating double play, and you could feel the swing to the Red Sox like a 120 mph wind.

So now, it’s onto game six.

How in the world does Tampa Bay bounce back from this one? Do they brush it off, and move on in “30 minutes” as manager Joe Maddon said? Or does this become an epic back breaker, the type of loss that creates a snowball effect, which could lead to another improbable comeback? Only time will tell of course, but this is what great teams are made of.

The Red Sox are now two wins closer to pulling off another stunner. The Rays are one win away from putting this scare on the backburner, and moving on to host the Phillies in the World Series. They’re also potentially 18 innings from becoming victim number three in Boston’s onslaughts of coming back from 3-1 or worse deficits in this decade.

I liken it to the classic Sonic games. You get to the second to last level, you have three lives left, and today you lost one of those lives. But you still have two shots left. The big bad Phillies await if you can make it. There are no continues. You’ve made it this far, now you’ve got two more chances to seal the deal, otherwise it’s back to the start.

The Rays have gone too far to blow it now.

This fairytale adventure just had to end at home didn’t it? Well, now it will. One way or the other, the fate of the Tampa Bay Rays will be determined in St. Pete.  It’s only fitting that it come down to this.

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