It's Boston

By JC De La Torre

The Boston Red Sox held off the LA Angels to win the ALDS three games to one, setting up an all AL East American League Championship Series.

Game One will be Friday Night at the Trop.

One thing can definitely said about this series, the teams hate each other. The fans hate each other. Each game was hotly contested...it should make for a great ALCS.

Congrats to the defending World Champions, I think I can speak for most Rays fans when I say, there's no team I'd like to see the Rays measure themselves against to get to the World Series.

RAYS WIN AND ADVANCE TO THE ALCS!

By JC De La Torre

The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Chicago White Sox 6-2 to wrap up the American League Divisional Series with a 3 games to 1 victory. The Rays now await to see if the Boston Red Sox can wrap up their ALDS victory over the LA Angels. If the Red Sox take care of business at home, the Rays will host Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. If the Angels rally to win the ALDS, the series will begin on the road in Los Angeles.

The Rays jumped to a 4-0 lead thanks to two home runs by BJ Upton, a double by Cliff Floyd, and a single by Dioner Navarro. In the bottom of the 4th, Paul Konerko homered to cut the lead to 4-1. The Rays would answer in the 5th, with Carols Pena singling home Aki Iwamura to put them up by 4. Jermaine Dye's home run in the sixth would cut the lead back down to 3, but again the Rays would answer with another scoring single by Pena in top of the 7th.

Grant Balfour would enter the game in the eight and get the final six outs, the last by striking out Ken Griffey, Jr. and with that, a raucous celebration began for the Rays.

On a personal note, I promised my wife that if the Rays made the ALCS, I would cut my hair into a "RayHawk" - and tonight I made good on my promise...it should be an interesting day at work tomorrow.

Congrats to the Rays on their first ever playoff series win!

Rays fly past the Sox again, Up 2-0 in the Series

By JC De La Torre

The Rays are one game away from advancing to the American League Championship Series as they zipped past the Chicago White Sox 6-2 in Game Two of the ALDS. Rays Ace Scott Kazmir had a rocky start, hitting Orlando Cabrerra to begin the game (some believe on purpose for Cabrerra's little tift with Grant Balfour the previous game). He loaded the bases in the 1st and ended up giving up 2 runs. After Dioner Navarro singled in a run in the second, it was 2-1 until the bottom of the 5th. With Bartlett on, Aki Iwamura, who hit only six home runs during the regular season, blasted a two run homer to left to give the Rays a 3-2 lead. After Kaz left in the 6th, Balfour and JP Howell got the Rays to the bottom of the 8th with the lead - where the Rays opened up the game. BJ Upton led off with the triple. Crawford's single scored Upton, then Rocco Baldelli's single scored Crawford. Navarro would give the Rays one more run with another double setting up the 9th for peculiar Chad Bradford. Bradford's strange pitching style (each pitch his knuckles on his pitching arm swing down, nearly touching the ground) seemed to dumbfound the White Sox and after a controversial "hit" by Jermaine Dye where Willie Aybar appeared to tag out Dye running to first but the umpire said he missed, Bradford shut down the Sox one, two, three for the win.

The Rays are now 23-2 in front of home crowds over 30,000. They go head-to-head with the Bucs as Game 3 starts at 4pm Eastern in Chicago, right about the same time the Bucs take on the Broncos. You don't want to look ahead, but with the Rays up 2-0 and the Boston Red Sox up 2-0 on the LA Angels heading back to Boston, it is conceivable that the Rays could have home field advantage for the ALCS. Boston has not beaten Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg this season.