Any day now, Bud Selig will green-light the Rays to print playoff tickets.
"It's been like one of the best weeks in franchise history," said left fielder Carl Crawford, who is in his seventh season with the club and rarely has experienced the giddiness that comes with a six-game winning streak, the Rays having beaten the Blue Jays three straight before taking the measure of the Sox. "You know, we're just going to try to keep it going. We've got that feeling of winning, and we kind of like it. It just speaks volumes about what we're trying to do here."
The best thing that can be said for the Sox, meanwhile, after losing their fifth in a row is that they don't have to play today, after showing up at the ballpark for games on each of the last 20 days. They should also have both David Ortiz and Mike Lowell back in the lineup when they face the Jays tomorrow night in Fenway Park.
Without Ortiz for a second day - he was prepared to pinch hit for Julio Lugo in the eighth, before Crawford doubled home a third run off Manny Delcarmen - the Sox managed just two hits against Rays starter James Shields, who pitched his first complete-game shutout. The Sox advanced only one runner to second base, and it took Manny Ramírez's first stolen base in three years to do so.
"Contract year," Ramírez cracked afterward. "I'm stealing bases."
"I'm just trying to make something happen," he said in a more serious vein. "I thought I was out. I was going, 'Yeah, I got a break.' "
Beckett, meanwhile, struck out the first five Rays he faced and registered eight of the Rays' first nine outs by strikeout in his first outing since being skipped a start with a stiff neck. But like Clay Buchholz, who took a one-hitter into the eighth inning Saturday night and lost, Beckett was left to explain how he lost on a day he was so dominating.
