Rays Win, Red Sox Lose, AL Wild Card All Tied Up

With only two games remaining in the regular season, the American League Wild-Card is all knotted up between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays.

Boston found yet another way to lose a ballgame Monday evening, squandering their one-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays with a 6-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. This marks their 17th failure in 22 games, creating a giant sucking sound out of Beantown.

Josh Beckett started for Boston and ended up surrendering seven runs on six hits over six innings, losing to the Orioles for the second time in less than a week. Ouch. An attempted rally in the eighth was thwarted when the Red Sox loaded the bases with one out, missing the opportunity when Pedro Strop struck out Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who was hit in the throat with a foul ball in the bottom half of the inning) and retired Marco Scutaro on a grounder to end the threat.

The Red Sox must win their final two games, and at worst, back into the postseason by winning a one-game playoff against the Rays. That would be the most exciting scenario, of course, but either way they control their own destiny. Former Oriole Erik Bedard will face his old team Tuesday night against rookie left-hander Zach Britton, who has a career 10.80 ERA against the Red Sox over two games this season. Looking good for Boston.

B.J. Upton Avoids Arbitration, Gets a Raise

The Tampa Bay Rays have agreed to give B.J. Upton a $4.825 million contract, avoiding arbitration and keeping the center fielder around for one more season.

Losing his arbitration hearing in 2009, the tall and slender 26-year-old was awarded $3 million rather than his request for $3.3 million so the Rays wouldn't break the bank.

He and Carl Crawford then became the first teammates in big league history to surpass 60 extra-base hits and 40 steals in the same season. Upton is also the only player in baseball with at least 100 doubles and 100 steals since 2008.

Don't let those numbers fool you, though. Upton hit 18 homers and drove in only 62 runs over 154 games last year, striking out 164 times while batting just .234... which allotted him a $1.8 million raise. However, he did nail 38 doubles and steal 42 bases in 51 attempts for the American League East champions.

Either way, he'll have the glory all to himself now, as Crawford hit the road last month for greener pastures: a $142 million, seven-year contract with the Boston Red Sox.

[Tampa Tribune on Twitter]

Can't We All Just Get Along?

It looks like dugout spats are all the rage these days. The Tampa Bay Rays are the latest team to join the quarrel bandwagon. After losing Friday to the Diamondbacks and Edwin Jackson's no-hitter and dropping 7 of their last 10 games, they've dropped to third in the AL East.

Let's not forget they've also had a perfect game thrown against them as well, so getting squashed by a few no hit games, plus losing like crazy had to start getting to them sometime.

Yep, Still Awesome

Just thought we'd check in on the Tampa Bay Rays... and yeah, they're still kicking ass.

In fact, they are the proud owners of the best record in baseball at 31-20. Not by a landslide or anything, as they're only a half game ahead of the Boston Red Sox, and every division-winner in the NL already has 30 wins.

Regardless, they are technically the best. And that's pretty badass, all things considered. They've never won more than 70 games in a season, and they still don't draw in the crowd (a little over 12,000 made it to the Memorial Day festivities) but they've emerged victorious in 16 of their last 17 home games.

C'mon people. If you're in the area, get to a game.

[Her Rays]

B.J. Upton To DL, Jonny Gomes Returns

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays placed second baseman/center fielder B.J. Upton on the 15-day disabled list yesterday with a strained left quadriceps, retroactive to June 9th.

The 22-year-old, #2 overall pick in 2002 injured himself running out a grounder in the first inning of a game on June 8th. He is batting a team-leading .320 with nine home runs and 31 RBIs, so it's a pretty big hit to the 29-34 Devil Rays.

In a related move, the club recalled outfielder Jonny Gomes from the AAA Durham Bulls. Gomes was batting .302 in 13 minor league games this season with one homer and seven RBIs.

This way, they won't get stuck having to play Elijah Dukes the next time he's taking heat from the media heat for impregnating another young girl.

[The Heater]