ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Big Collapse? Just a footnote in Tampa Bay history.
The owner can have a good laugh about it now. That messy business at Fenway Thursday night got him two more lucrative home dates.
Nope, for the Tampa Bay Rays it's all blue skies, or, as the late, great Al McGuire would say, seashells and balloons. The Tampa Bay Rays are going to the World Series.
They got there the best possible way, too. There were no controversies, no disputed plays, no need for replay. They took on the mighty defending champion Red Sox in the franchise's first Game 7 and beat them fair and square. Matt Garza outpitched Jon Lester, they got what they needed from the bullpen - most notably during the dramatic eighth inning, when manager Joe Maddon used five pitchers to get his three outs - and they got the big hits. They won it, 3-1, and on Wednesday night they will welcome the Philadelphia Phillies to the world of Cowbells and Catwalks.
How bad would it have been around here had they not won this series? How scarred would the players have been? Would the manager ever live it down? Would the fans who are discovering the exquisite joy of quality baseball and, specifically, quality postseason baseball, dismiss this team as a collection of chokers and cancel any plans about investing their emotions and hard-earned dollars into another season of Rays baseball?
We'll never know.
We'll never know because now they do not have to atone for their sins. There will be no scathing inquisition. They took care of their own absolution by winning the game they had to win.
They won it with talent. The lineup written out by Maddon included four No. 1 draft picks. That included winning pitcher Garza, a former Twins numero uno who shocked no one in the baseball community by overmatching the Red Sox in the biggest game he's ever pitched. Everyone in the game knows he has great stuff, and last night he apparently decided it would be a nice idea to bring his A game to The Trop.
Garza gave up a home run to Dustin Pedroia, the second man he faced, and not much more. The Red Sox didn't get another hit until the seventh.
Talent, talent, talent. Evan Longoria, the Mike Schmidt in waiting, tied the game in the fourth with a double down the right-field line that scored Carlos Peña from first. Longoria never hits the ball in that direction. But in a Game 7 you learn very quickly to do whatever it takes.
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