It's such a shame to disappoint all of those Red Sox fans here at Tropicana field.  Last night we got an 'up' pitching performance from Casey Fossum.   It's so nice to see the Devil Rays play hard and not be intimidated by the Red Sox.

There's a reason the Red Sox are intimidating.  David Ortiz? Manny Ramirez?  No I don't think so.  I'm sure you'll argue, but I think Gomes and Wiggington are on par with them as far as hitting.  Of course their pitching is better.  Not extraordinarily better, Our pitchers on a good day can handle them, and we've shown that.   It's because we as Rays fans are told by our newspapers,  our broadcasters, by Foxsports, by ESPN that the Red Sox are great.  Everybody continually says how great how great how great they are.  And at the end of the day, they have the confidence of being told how great they are day in and day out, and we don't.

Last year we went 11-9 against the vaunted Yankees, and they treated it like we had just won the division.  Sure it was a nice achievement, but they are literally not that much better than us.  Bob Costas once said a winning basball team wins 5 out of 8 games and a losing team loses 5 out of 8.  No matter how much the Orioles or the Blue Jays improve their team, they are always overshadowed by the Yanks and Sox, even when their improvements are relatively minor.   Damon in place of Williams in CF for the Yankees?  Yes it is an improvement, but even an improvement of a .200 bat to a .300 bat is 1 one more every TEN times at bat.  If Damon his 20 more home runs that's good, but over the course of 162 games?  But he's  Damon all star all star all star, so are told by EVERYONE that the Yankees are the team to beat this year, they are the favorites for the world series.  They've always been the favorites every year, but they haven't won it since 2000.  Five years of us being told how great the Yankees were.  No matter how much the O's or Blue Jays improve the Yanks are favored, the Blue Jays would have to win their division to prove it to anyone.  The Yankees are favored to win the World Series even though they haven't done it in 5 years, 5 years of continually adding marquee players.

Teams are intimidating because the fans and the opposing teams are told that they are, and by the same definition the Rays, Pirates, Royals and Mariners are continually told that they suck so they live up to that expectation.