Tampa Bay reaches World Series

[NewsWhore]

The Tampa Bay Rays, with a homerun by Dominican Willy Aybar and seven dominating innings of pitching by starter Matt Garza beat the Boston Red Sox 3-1 in the seventh and deciding game of the American League Championship Playoffs and win their tickets to the "Fall Classic." This time there was no collapse by the Rays' bullpen, and they won the series 4-3 and eliminated the current World Series champs. Now the Rays will play in the first World Series in their 13-year history against the Philadelphia Phillies, the champions of the Championship Series of the National League when they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1. The first game of the World Series will be next Wednesday at Tropicana Field, the Rays' home field. Together with Garza (2-0) and the grand pitching hero of the Rays, was the rookie lefthander, David Price who struck out right fielder J.D. Drew with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Red Sox were the first to score with a long homerun by Dustin Pedroia in the first inning. Boston's starting pitcher, Jon Lester, kept Tampa Bay without any hits until the bottom of the fourth inning when they tied the game when Iwamura got the first hit, B.J. Upton struck out, Carlos Pena hit into a fielder's choice, forcing Iwamura at second and Evan Longoria hit a double to right field. The Tampa Bay team was born in 1998, coming in in last place with a record of 63-99 and 51 games out of first place occupied by the New York Yankees with 114-48. The Rays reached their first championship final when they eliminated the Chicago White Sox in the fourth game of a five-game series, 6-2. During eight seasons the Rays had come in last in their division, seven of them with losing records of less than .500. A total of four managers had paraded through Tampa Bay: Larry Rothschild, Hal McRae, Lou Pinella and Joe Madden, who took over the team in 2006, his first season as a manager. Before this he was the bench coach for the California Angels for nearly 10 seasons, six of them under manager Mike Scioscia. His experience includes three post-season appearances and one World Series. Tampa has a flock of young players with lots of energy and enthusiasm. It is a building project that is giving fruit at the proper time. The Rays, that have never managed to win more than 70 games in a season, suffered 96 defeats last year, while they finished the regular season this year with 97 wins, ahead of Boston and New York.

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