Heading into September the AL East was a two horse race for the crown, and the runner up was easily going to take the wild card spot heading into October. However, after last night's Tampa Bay Rays win coupled with the Boston Red Sox loss, there is a tie for the wild card spot with only two games remaining in the season!
The Rays have had a roller coaster season to say the least, and it started in the off season with what seemed like almost complete overhaul of it's roster. Gone was outfielder Carl Crawford, the all time stolen base king in Rays history. Gone was first baseman Carlos Pena who provided power in the middle of the lineup. Their set up man, and closer from a year ago? Gone. The only two guys you probably could have named on opening day were Evan Longoria and David Price.
Heck, at the beginning of September you probably could have only named those two. 21 games ago they were 8 games out of the wild card and toiling towards the end of the season. Thanks to a nearly monumental collapse by the Beantown Sox the Rays now control their own destiny. And the sad part is, nobody in Tampa seems to care.
Monday night, starting the biggest series of the year, against the division rival, and champion Yankees, Tropicana Field held 18,772 people, or roughly 52% of what it can hold at capacity! (according to the espn box score).
Being transplanted down to Central Florida, and only an hour from Tampa, I have gotten to see many Ray game on local tv and it's almost comical, yet sad at the same time to see the stadium empty. Funny because you can see more blue seats than butts sitting in them, and I swear you can hear the echoes of the beer guy yelling "beer here" bouncing off the empty seats. But it is ultimately sad beyond belief that this team, which has battled it's way out of an almost impossible hole, has to go out and compete for a chance at the playoffs with nobody there to cheer. The fans of the Rays should be embarrassed! That is almost as bad as not selling out playoff games (cough, cough, Atlanta).
This is something the people of Cleveland would kill for. We got all jacked up because the Indians were "in the hunt" at the All-Star break! We got geeked when we brought back Jim Thome to bring back memories of the glory days of the mid-90's! The Rays are about to take down the mighty Red Sox, and their $160 million dollar payroll (to put it in perspective, the Rays 2011 payroll on opening day was $42 million)!
Maybe the worst part is that the Rays, should they make it into the playoffs, might have the best starting pitching out of any of the playoff teams! And as we saw last year with the San Francisco Giants, great pitching, and timely hitting can carry you to a championship...regardless if anyone is there to see it.
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