These Rays are dangerous

MLB. If the Sox learned anything from their recent lost weekend in St. Petersburg, it may by that this is not the same hapless Tampa franchise that has yet to post a winning record in its previous 10 years of existence.

In years past, the Red Sox would always seem to find a way to pull out a win against the Rays, no matter the deficit or location.

But last weekend, the Rays proved, at least for three games, that they have the pitching to protect the slimmest of leads. That’s impressive, considering the Red Sox entered Thursday with eight wins in their final at-bat, posting an impressive 7-2 record in one-run games, with both losses coming in the first two games of their series at Tropicana Field.

“What can happen is like what happened in Tampa,” Sox skipper Terry Francona said. “We try to talk all the time about spreading (offense) out enough where one mistake doesn’t cost you the game. But it’s nice to know that we seem to possess that ability of pulling a game out because it’s better than the alternative.”

But Francona also pointed out stats can be very misleading, especially those relating to one-run decisions.

“The only thing about that is we didn’t seem to do that a lot last year, but we played good enough to win however many games we won,” Francona said of his 96-win World Series title team of 2007.