Rivalry? Rays-Red Sox is getting there

Then came those six meetings in September, starting with a three-game series in Boston. The Rays began the set with a 1½-game lead, and after the Red Sox shut them out the first night to close within half a game, plenty of people assumed that Boston would take over first place the next night, and go on to take the division.

It didn't happen. The Rays beat Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon in that Tuesday night game, and beat the Sox in 14 innings the next night.

When they won two of three from Boston the following week at Tropicana Field, the AL East title was basically theirs.

"We could never overtake them," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said Thursday. "This is our chance to overtake them."

Francona downplayed any talk of a rivalry, and so did Papelbon, who allowed that "you could definitely say there's a certain something developing here."

"But you've got to have history," he added quickly.

That's fine, and maybe that means Red Sox-Rays can't be called a true rivalry yet. Maybe it'll take a great, six- or seven-game series here, or maybe it'll take them going down to the wire in the AL East again next year.

Maybe it'll take the Rays holding off the Red Sox when it really counts, which is now.

And maybe by then the Rays will get tired of hearing about playing the Red Sox.

Even Thursday, Shields answered one Red Sox question by pointing out how many other big teams the Rays beat this year.

"Honestly, it doesn't matter who we play," he said. "They said the Cubbies are coming to town, the Angels are coming to town. We swept all of them. The Red Sox, the Angels, the Cubs, we swept all of them, and people were still doubting us right up until the last week of the season."

The Rays should have erased those doubts by how they played over 162 games, by how they held off the Red Sox to win the division. But as it turned out, those 162 games only determined who got home-field advantage in this series.

As it turns out, the Rays are going to have to fight off the Red Sox one more time.

"It's certainly fitting, with the intense games we played against them all year," Rays general manager Andrew Friedman said. "This is a completely different season, but I think the games will be played similarly. That should be good for the TV ratings, but it won't necessarily be good for my heart rate."

It could be good for developing a rivalry, and it could be good for once and for all establishing the Rays as the team they'd like to be.

"Everybody in this clubhouse grew up wanting to compete against the best players in the world," Wheeler said. "Right now, they're the best team in the world.

"There was no doubt in my mind that they're the team to beat."

They're the team the Rays did beat, 10 times in 18 head-to-head meetings. They're the team the Rays did beat, to win the AL East title.

Now they're the team the Rays have to beat again.

Does that make this a rivalry?

You know what, maybe it does.