October 19, 2008: Rays beat Red Sox in Game 7 to clinch their first American League pennant

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays finished last in their division nine times in 10 seasons after joining the American League as an expansion franchise in 1998. Their winning percentage was .398 over their first decade. Their best season was 2004, when they went 70-91 and finished fourth in the five-team AL East Division.

Their fortunes changed in 2008, after rebranding as the Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa Bay was picked to finish fourth in the AL East, but with a roster that included five first-round draft picks,1 they surprised the competition by coming in first so known with a 97-65 record.

The Boston Red Sox had won the 2007 World Series, their second championship in four seasons. In 2008 they led the AL East until June 29, when the Rays pulled ahead by a half-game. Boston tied Tampa Bay on September 15 by winning the first game of a three-game series at Tropicana Field, the Rays’ home ballpark. But after the Rays won the final two games, the Red Sox were two games back, where they finished the season.

Tampa Bay won its best-of-five AL Division Series against the Chicago White Sox in four games. Boston defeated the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, setting up an AL Championship Series between the division rivals. Tampa Bay jumped out to a three-games-to-one lead and held a 7-0 advantage in the seventh inning of Game Five. Boston, however, rallied to win with eight runs against the Rays’ bullpen. The Red Sox then won Game Six to tie the series.

While the Rays were postseason newcomers, the Red Sox were no strangers to do-or-die October play. A season earlier, Boston had overcome a three-games-to-one ALCS deficit against the Cleveland Indians. Three years before that, in 2004, the Red Sox became the first team to rally from a 3-0 series deficit, when they beat their archrival New York Yankees in four straight ALCS games on the way to winning the franchise’s first World Series championship in 86 seasons.

Now, in 2008, a crowd of 40,473 filled Tropicana Field for Game Seven. The starting pitchers were a rematch of Tampa Bay’s 9-1 win in Game Three at Fenway Park. The winning pitcher in that game, Rays right-hander Matt Garza, had taken a shutout into the seventh inning. The 24-year-old Garza – a Minnesota Twins first-round pick in 2005 – had been traded to the Rays in November 2007, and joined a young rotation that included James Shields, Andy Sonnanstine, Edwin Jackson, and Scott Kazmir. Garza had finished the season 11-9 with a 3.70 ERA.

Boston countered with 24-year-old lefty Jon Lester. Lester, who had limited the Angels to one unearned run in two ALDS starts – was the Game Three loser, giving up five runs, including homers to B.J. Upton2 and Evan Longoria in a four-run third inning. A 16-game winner in 2008, Lester had won all three of his starts and compiled a 0.90 ERA against the Rays in the regular season. He was the winning pitcher when the Red Sox wrapped up their sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series.

With Garza wearing earplugs to tune out the crowd noise, Coco Crisp led off for Boston. Crisp, who had hit 5-for-10 in the previous three games, bunted to Garza, who threw to first for the out. Dustin Pedroia, headed for AL MVP honors, followed by hitting a 1-and-1 pitch over the wall in the left-field corner to give the Red Sox the lead, 1-0.

Garza walked David Ortiz but got Kevin Youkilis to fly out to right field and struck out J.D. Drew. He retired the Red Sox in order in the second inning and struck out Ortiz to strand Pedroia at second in the third.

Lester retired the first nine batters he faced and took the one-run lead to the bottom of the fourth. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura led off with a single, but Upton struck out and Carlos Peña grounded into a force out at second. Longoria – whose 27-homer campaign netted him the AL Rookie of the Year Award – drove in Peña with a double to right field, tying the game, 1-1.

Garza had set down the Red Sox one-two-three in the fourth. He made it seven straight outs with a clean fifth, and the Rays went ahead in the bottom of the inning. Willy Aybar led off with a double and took third on Dioner Navarro’s single. Right fielder Rocco Baldelli, who had missed most of the season because of an illness, came to bat. He had homered in Game Three.3 With two strikes against him, Baldelli singled to left, scoring Aybar to put the Rays in front, 2-1.

“He’s tough. He’s always tough … and you’re just trying to scratch out runs when he’s out there,” Baldelli said of Lester. “He left a cutter, which is probably his toughest pitch against righties, out over the plate and I was lucky enough to put my hands inside of it.”4

Maddon said he had considered playing Baldelli in Games Five and Six but decided to wait until Game Seven because he didn’t want to lose him in the lineup due to his illness.5

The Red Sox threatened to tie the game in the sixth and seventh. Pedroia’s one-out walk in the sixth snapped Garza’s string of eight straight outs, but Navarro threw him out stealing while Ortiz struck out.

In the seventh, Drew walked with one out and Jason Bay singled to left. Maddon visited the mound. “He looked at me and he said, ‘How do you feel?’” Garza said “‘Great. You ain’t taking me out of this game. This is my game and I’m going to finish it off.’”6

Mark Kotsay’s fly ball moved Drew to third. This brought up Jason Varitek, who had struggled in the series, getting just one hit in 21 at-bats. Manager Terry Francona had pinch-hit for Varitek twice in the series, but Varitek had hit the game-winning homer in Game Six.

Varitek fouled off the first pitch. Garza threw inside and Varitek checked his swing. He fouled off Garza’s third pitch. Garza’s fourth pitch was low and inside. Varitek swung and missed to end the Red Sox threat.

Aybar led off the Rays’ half of the seventh with a home run over the left-field fence, putting Tampa Bay ahead 3-1. “I really felt great when I hit it. I thought it was a killer hit,” said Aybar of his second home run of the series.7

Alex Cora led off Boston eighth and reached first when shortstop Jason Bartlett couldn’t handle the ball for an error.8 Maddon went to his bullpen. “Even when I came out, I wasn’t out of gas,” said Garza, who had thrown 118 pitches. “I told myself from the beginning that I’m going to leave it all out there today, no matter what.”9

Right-hander Dan Wheeler gave up a single to Crisp. Pedroia flied out to left field. Maddon returned to his bullpen, bringing in left-hander J.P. Howell to face the left-handed Ortiz. Ortiz grounded into a force out at second, putting runners at the corners.

Maddon brought in right-hander Chad Bradford to face Youkilis. After Youkilis walked on six pitches, Maddon called on his fifth pitcher of the inning: left-hander David Price.10

The 22-year-old Price, selected first overall in the 2007 June draft out of Vanderbilt University, was called up in September after pitching with the Triple-A Durham Bulls.11 He was a dynamic addition down the stretch, pitching 14 innings, striking out 12, and posting an ERA of 1.93. Price pitched in Game Two, getting two outs and earning his first major-league win when the Rays scored in the bottom of the 11th.

Price struck out Drew on a half-swing to end the Red Sox rally. Drew questioned the call after the game. “I don’t think I went around. I think that at-bat was kind of taken away from me,” he said. “If I check my swing, ask the third base umpire. I thought I held up.”12

Red Sox left-hander Hideki Okajima retired the Rays in order in the eighth, and Price stayed on the mound for the ninth. After walking Bay, he struck out the next two batters. Pinch-hitter Jed Lowrie grounded to Iwamura, who tagged second for the final out.

“The shell-shocked Rays and their fans seemed braced for defeat early yesterday,” wrote Dan Shaughnessy in the Boston Globe.13 But Crawford summed up how the Rays pulled out the win. “This team, when something has happened already, we’re really good at putting it behind us. That’s what we did, put it behind us and went out there and played our game and kept on playing hard.”14

The Rays hit 16 home runs in the ALCS, a record for any postseason series. Garza was the series MVP. “Garza is one of those guys that you’d want in this spot in this series,” said Baldelli.15 “He had great stuff tonight. He really did,” said Maddon.16

Tampa Bay won its first AL crown, one year after losing 96 games and two years after losing 100. The Rays lost the World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games.17

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA200810190.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2008/B10190TBA2008.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hvDMQx8fVU&ab_channel=MLBVault

Photo credit: David Price, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Matt Garza was chosen in the first round of the 2005 draft by the Minnesota Twins. The Rays’ first-round picks were Rocco Baldelli in 2001, B.J. Upton in 2002, Evan Longoria in 2006, and David Price in 2007.

2 Upton went by the name of B.J. Upton at the start of his career. The B.J. stood for Bossman Junior. Bossman was the name that his friends called him and Junior due to his surname. He started going by his given name, Melvin Upton Jr., in 2015. Upton decided to go back to being called B.J. in 2019. Jake Mintz, “After Four Years as Melvin Upton Jr., B.J. Upton Is Back to Being B.J.,” MLB.com, January 15, 2019, https://www.mlb.com/cut4/b-j-upton-changes-name-again-c302728708.

3 Baldelli had played only since August 10 due to mitochondrial myopathy. The illness got him fatigued easily. It limited his playing time until it was diagnosed and doctors were able to provide him with medications, nutritional supplements, and dietary changes.

4 Michael Vega, “Two Rays Turned Out to Be Big Additions,” Boston Globe, October 20, 2008: C13.

5 Katherine Smith, “Part-Timers Baldelli, Price Come Up Big on Big Stage,” Tampa Tribune, October 20, 2008: 10.

6 Jim McCabe, “He’s the Talk of the Town,” Boston Globe, October 20, 2008: C13.

7 Vega,“Two Rays Turned Out to Be Big Additions.”

8 Tampa Bay did not have an error in the first seven games of the postseason but made six in the last four games.

9 McCabe, “He’s the Talk of the Town.”

10 Maddon was able to use five relievers in one inning because at that time MLB rule 5.10(g) stated that any reliever must pitch to one batter until that batter was put out or reached base, or the offensive team was put out, with exceptions for injuries and illnesses. The rule was changed after the 2019 season with the goal of reducing the number of pitching changes and help shorten games. It requires pitchers to either face a minimum of three batters in an appearance or pitch to the end of a half-inning, with exceptions for injuries and illnesses.

11 Price played at all three minor-league levels in 2008. He went 12-1 in 19 games with a 2.30 ERA and 109 strikeouts.

12 Amalle Benjamin, “Rays Survive Game 7, Stop Red Sox Run,” Boston Globe, October 20, 2008: C1.

13 Dan Shaughnessy, “Sox Dreams Dashed,” Boston Globe, October 20, 2008: A1.

14 Marc Lancaster, “No Chance, No Problem for Rays,” Tampa Tribune, October 20, 2008: 11.

15 Joe Henderson, “Garza Clutch in Pressure Situation,” Tampa Tribune, October 20, 2008: 10.

16 McCabe, “He’s the Talk of the Town.”

17 Tampa Bay’s World Series appearance left just three teams that never played in the Series. Of the three, the Seattle Mariners have never made it to the World Series since joining the league in 1977. The Washington Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) won the World Series in 2019. The Texas Rangers made their first appearance in 2010 and won the Series in 2023.