Sports Redux: The Rays Aren't Dead Yet

Well, so much for convincingly burying the Rays this week.

Josh Beckett, who hasn't won a game since August 12th (you all know where your panic buttons are located, right?), dug the Sox a 5-1 hole in three innings, showing his sudden propensity for serving up home run balls once again. This time, his beneficiaries were Carl Crawford and Pat Burrell, and the Rays followed Burrell's shot with three more runs. The Sox clawed their way back to tie it, scoring the tying run on a wild pitch, but Ramon Ramirez gave up the go-ahead run, and Manny Delcarmen's first pitch was sent flying by Evan Longoria (unofficially hitting .975 against the Sox this year) to put the game away.

Texas won, so the wild card lead is now 2 1/2 on them and 5 on Tampa Bay. If you still had a glimmer of hope about catching NY for the division, you should probably be aware that the Yankees are spending the whole month playing Baltimore, giving randomly-selected fans at-bats, and winning like 16-3 every day. So forget that. Clay Buchholz will go in the rubber game tonight before the Sox head to Chicago to play the White Sox, who basically just traded and released everybody.

And speaking of trades and releases, Brad Penny pitched eight shutout innings in his San Francisco debut. Bostonist hasn't thrown anything heavier than a wiffle ball in like 10 years, but we're pretty sure we could sign right now as a #4 starter in the National League.

Football time! The Patriots (or, more accurately, a bunch of guys who hope they will still be Patriots next week) finish off the preseason tonight against a similar collection in NY Giants uniforms. And Boston College has no idea who their quarterback will be. New coach Frank Spaziani told the press, "You tell me." At least he's under less pressure than Notre Dame coach (and former Pats guru) Charlie Weis, who is seeing sarcastic billboards popping up around South Bend.

Photo by Chris O'Meara/Associated Press.