The crowds come out in Tampa for the late summer playoff push!

“I know what they’re coming with,” Garza said, “and they’re coming with a lot to prove; everybody saying they’re out of it, they’re too far back. It’s the Red Sox. You can’t ever count them out. There’s guys putting up career years like (3B Adrian) Beltre and Big Papi (David Ortiz) is having a resurrection. So they’re still dangerous. You can’t count those guys out until that 162nd game, or when it says you’ve clinched and you’ve got that x or y by your name that you relax. But right now, no shot.”

Sure, it’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to say. The Red Sox are tough and they can’t be counted out and yadda yadda yadda. But I don’t want that, I want bulletin board material. I want 31 flavors of carnage and a dinner theater re-enactment of 300 with the Sox as the Spartans and the Rays as the Persians. We could leave that godforsaken place just two and a half games behind in the wild card race if we take ’em all. And two and a half sounds a lot better than eight and a half.

Sox, if you’ve still got any fight in you, tomorrow night would be an excellent time to start letting it out. Like, industrial size portions.

I want October, baseball, goddamit. Stop f#$kin’ with my autumn plans!