Resilient Rays rebound to rule AL

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Down to their last chance, the Tampa Bay Rays left no doubt they were worthy of the World Series, after all.

Baseball’s doormats have arrived.

Going from worst to first, the young Rays completed a stunning run to their first pennant, holding off the defending champion Boston Red Sox, 3-1, Sunday night behind Matt Garza’s masterful pitching in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

“It’s unbelievable,” center fielder B.J. Upton said. “We battled a lot of adversity this year. We stuck together as a team.”

And, they showed a bit of Boston-like resolve when they needed it.

The Rays nearly let the series slip away when they blew a seven-run lead late in Game 5 and lost meekly Saturday night. But when rookie David Price struck out J.D. Drew with the bases loaded to end the eighth inning, the Rays were on their way.

Price, who didn’t make his major league debut until late September, also worked the ninth, walking Jason Bay and striking out Mark Kotsay and Jason Varitek before getting pinch-hitter Jed Lowrie to ground into a game-ending force play.

“I wanted the ball,” Price said. “I think everybody down there in the ’pen wanted the ball tonight.”

Tampa Bay’s worst-to-first saga was the feel-good story of this season, and it probably was fitting that Price – the least experienced of the young Rays – was on the mound at the most critical point of the ALCS.

“Minimal experience, but I was not hesitant,” manager Joe Maddon said.

When it was over, players and coaches streamed out of the dugout and mobbed Price, eventually falling to the ground in a cluster that continued to grow when others began leaping on the pile.

Music blared and the crowd of 40,473 stood and cheered.

“It’s not what we expected to happen,” Boston slugger David Ortiz said. “You have to give them credit. They pitched well. They’ve got good hitters.”

The Rays were a 200-1 shot to win the World Series before the season started. Now, they’ll host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 on Wednesday night.

Garza beat Boston twice in a week and was picked as the series MVP.

“As a kid I think everybody pictures this night,” he said. “Usually it’s Game 7 of the World Series but I’ll take Game 7 of the ALCS.”

Willy Aybar homered, and Evan Longoria and Rocco Baldelli also drove in runs to support Garza. Acquired in an offseason trade with Minnesota, Garza limited the Red Sox to Dustin Pedroia’s first-inning home run.

Four more wins and Maddon’s bunch will become the first team to go from worst in the majors to World Series champion in just one season.

Longoria’s fourth-inning double off Jon Lester tied it at 1-all. Baldelli’s RBI single put the Rays ahead in the fifth after Aybar doubled and Dioner Navarro reached on an infield single.

Garza took the mound for the biggest game of his life with something, perhaps cotton balls, stuffed in his ears to help drown out the noise at sold-out Tropicana Field.

After splitting the first two games of the series at home, though, it was Tampa Bay that made itself at home in an opponent’s ballpark, with the Rays sending shot after shot sailing over the Green Monster. In all, the Rays outscored the Red Sox 29-13 in the three games at Fenway Park, hitting 10 home runs.

But the young Rays’ postseason inexperience showed in Game 5, when a normally reliable bullpen blew a 7-0 lead over the last three innings, allowing Boston to save its season with an 8-7 victory.

No team has repeated as World Series champion since the New York Yankees won three straight from 1998-2000.

“We played as hard as we could. Just kind of ran out of magic,” Pedroia said. “I’m proud of everybody, but it’s obviously a tough loss.”

FALL FLOPS

With Tampa Bay, which first played in 1998, reaching the World Series, that leaves three franchises that have not made it to the Fall Classic:

TeamFirst year

Texas Rangers-a1961

Washington Nationals-b1969

Seattle Mariners1977

a = started as Washington Senators

b = started as Montreal Expos