After it ended, the
Rays lingered in the visiting clubhouse at Fenway Park, as if they were sitting around a campfire having a conversation. Upon returning to the team hotel, the players gathered once more in a conference room, the best regular-season team in Rays history, stinging from consecutive walk-off defeats, from elimination, from all that might have been in their Division Series loss to the
Red Sox.
After winning Game 1 and taking a 5-2 lead in the first inning of Game 2, it appeared the best-of-five might end quickly, that the Rays might never let the Red Sox breathe. Even on Monday night in Game 4 there was a moment when the defending American League champions again seemed poised to regain control of the series, after they rallied from a 5-0 deficit to tie the score in the eighth inning and advanced the go-ahead run to second with none out.
Score the run, get six more outs, return to Tropicana Field for Game 5. Seemed possible, perhaps even likely. During the regular season, the Rays led the majors in run differential after the seventh inning. They had 11 road wins trailing by three runs or more, tying the 2001 Reds for the most in the modern era. One of those wins was a comeback from a 7-0 deficit at Fenway on Sept. 6.
Alas, the Red Sox had answers. Managed by Alex Cora, one of the game’s best strategists, and loaded with talent, including a number of emerging pitchers, they always had answers in this series. Rookie Garrett Whitlock escaped the eighth-inning jam. Game 4 walk-off hero
