Rays are getting a sinking feeling

TORONTO – He wasn’t looking to be reminded of the happy ending to another improbable baseball story. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon was just hunting for a place to watch the Florida-Miami college football game when he walked into a sports bar near the team hotel Saturday night and ran into Kevin Costner, who was in town for the Toronto International Film Festival and a charity gig with his band.

The actor and the manager do know one another. Costner helped the Rays unveil their new uniforms at the start of the season. “He’s a big Ultimate Fighting guy,” Maddon said. “His manager had set up a table for him and his band and his buddies to watch the game, then the fight. He invited us over.

“We talked for a long time. He went to Cal State Fullerton, which is about five minutes from where I live. My fiancée went to law school across the street. We talked about my family, his family, what’s been going on with us.

“Most of the players were there. Some guys were drinking beers, eating banana sundaes, pizza and stuff. It was great.”

At one point, Maddon looked up and saw that the Red Sox were losing in Texas. His own team having lost on an extra-inning grand slam earlier in the day, it was comfortng to see. “That was a nice visual,” he said.

Reality would return soon enough. The Rays lost 1-0 Sunday afternoon to the Blue Jays, their third straight loss in Toronto and fifth in their last six games. Their lead over the Red Sox in the American League East is down to 1½ games, the closest the race has been since July 28.

And now they head to Fenway Park, a field of screams for Tampa Bay. The Rays have lost all six times they’ve faced the Red Sox on Yawkey Way this season and eight straight going back to 2007. They’re 23-67 all-time in Fenway.

“I’ve been talking about this all year,” Maddon said. “We do need to win a game or two in Boston.

“We just need the mental hurdle that you have to overcome by winning in that form of enemy territory, which is very difficult. Not just for us.

“This is uncharted territory for us as an organization, going into this series at this time of year, with all this stuff at stake. It’s fabulous, actually. If anybody feels there’s more pressure applied to it, that’s wonderful, because when you play without a lot of pressure, that means you’re going home at the end of the month.”

Rays pitchers have a 7.88 ERA in Boston this season. Their hitters are batting .229 and have scored just 16 runs in six games. Even when the teams brawled there in June, the Rays came out on the short end with only three Boston players suspended compared to five Rays.

The Red Sox are hot. They’ve won 14 of their last 18 games. David Ortiz homered twice Sunday, ending a 19-game homerless streak. Jason Bay also homered, giving him five home runs and 30 RBIs since coming from Pittsburgh in the three-way Manny Ramirez deal. Paul Byrd was the winning pitcher; he is 4-1 since the Red Sox picked him up from Cleveland in a waiver deal.

The Rays did not make a trading deadline deal to bolster their chances. Their only move was to pick up reliever Chad Bradford in a waiver transaction.

Boston has its three best pitchers lined up to face the Rays – Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Josh Beckett, fresh off the disabled list. The Rays plan to counter with Edwin Jackson (0-2, 10.00 ERA this season in Fenway), Scott Kazmir (0-1, 6.75) and Andy Sonnanstine, who hasn’t faced Boston this season but is 1-1 with a 8.85 ERA lifetime against Boston.

Tampa Bay rookie sensation Evan Longoria, meanwhile, still hasn’t returned from a broken wrist sustained a month ago. The third baseman swung off a tee Sunday, plans to take live batting practice in Boston, and hopes to be ready when the Rays head to New York to play the Yankees this weekend.

The wise guys say this is where the Red Sox, winners of two of the last four World Series, blow right past the Rays, who have been terrific at home (53-21) but are in a stretch in which they play just seven of their last 24 games at Tropicana Field.

A few more losses this week and you’ll start hearing speculation about whether a total collapse is in the cards, one that would keep the Rays from making their first postseason appearance. Tampa holds an eight-game lead over the Minnesota Twins, the second-place team in the AL Central and the nearest wild-card contender besides Boston. The Blue Jays, winners of eight in a row, are 9½ behind the Rays.

“We’ve been fighting the odds all year,” Rays reliever Troy Percival said. “We’ve been fighting the critics, fighting the media. Everybody counts us out and thinks we’re going to fold, and we just haven’t.

“I don’t put anything on this weekend. We ran into a hot team, and we’re cold.”

Matt Garza, who had given up just one earned run in four previous starts against the Blue Jays this season, gave up another Sunday and lost. Friday night, the Rays scored two unearned runs in the first inning against Toronto ace Roy Halladay but lost on two home runs by Alex Rios. Saturday, the Rays scored three times in the ninth to force extra innings, with shortstop Jason Bartlett preserving the tie with a remarkable play in the bottom of the ninth. They took the lead in the top of the 13th, then lost when Percival gave up a grand slam to Toronto catcher Gregg Zaun – or “Zaunny Bench,” as he was called by one jubilant Red Sox player watching on TV in Texas.

Toronto hadn’t had a walkoff home run in nearly two seasons. The Rays, meanwhile, went two for 20 with runners in scoring position this weekend, their best scoring chance Sunday expiring when Rocco Baldelli popped up with the bases loaded to end the eighth.

Hardly the ideal prologue for a September series in Boston.

“It’s a challenge,” Rays veteran Cliff Floyd said. “First of all, it’s simple. The Red Sox know how to win there. You beat them there, that changes everything.”

Rays designated hitter Eric Hinske was with the Red Sox this time last season. “I wouldn’t say we’re intimidated,” he said. “We’ve just got to find a way to win.

“I think we know who we are as team. We’re up by (a game and a half). We don’t have to prove anything to ourselves or anybody else. Just play good baseball.”

Don Zimmer has been in the game for 60 years. At age 77, watching the rise of the Rays as a senior baseball advisor has made this summer one of his sweetest in memory. Zimmer knows something about late-September collapses too. He managed the Red Sox in 1978, when they had a double-digit lead over the Yankees in July, lost four straight games in September to the Yankees in what became known as “The Boston Massacre,” then saw his team rally to win the last eight games of the regular season before falling in a one-game playoff to the Yankees.

“Nobody in baseball thought we’d be here,” Zimmer said of the Rays. “Nobody. Nobody even knows who these guys are. (Gabe) Gross hits a walkoff home run, and people say, ‘Who’s Gross?’ (Ben) Zobrist wins a game, and it’s ‘Who’s Zobrist?’ I’ve been getting that from people all year.

“I know to this day there are a lot of people who believe they don’t deserve to be here. But anybody who is 30 games over .500 at this stage of the season has to be doing something right.

“Boston has a great record at home, like we do. We’re playing them home and home, let’s see how it works out.

“People have asked me what this team is going to do in the next 30 days. I say, ‘I’m no mind-reader. But I’ve watched this team play good all year. We’ve hit some little (downswings), like now, but we’re still in front. Somebody’s got to catch us.

“Who knows what’s going to happen? I don’t.”

Last stand, or happy ending? The closing act begins Monday at Fenway Park.