For Rays, it's a day for waving the white flag

This morning, amid the growing carnage of a playoff chase slowed to an all-but-dead crawl, a tiny voice in every Rays fan's head is saying pick up that phone, call the radio talk guys and shout out, "See, they shouldn't have traded Kazzy boy."

It's a big, fat hanging curve, a tape-measure shot right down the deep, dark tunnel the Rays find themselves in after their make-or-break series with the Red Sox began with Break taking a sizable lead after a putrid 8-4 loss before just 17,692 at the Trop. Apparently we're not the only ones who think this season is done.

The stink of this wild-card race just about burned to a crisp - a season-high six-game hole - pointed to Tuesday's wild card, the poker-faced Andy Sonnanstine, who was making what would have been Scott Kazmir's scheduled start. Sonnanstine reminded us why he was marooned in Durham for two months, giving up eight hits and five runs in four-plus innings. But he had loads of help at the plate (14 more strikeouts) and in the field (three more errors).

Still, the way the Rays' short-term mojo is working right about now, Kaz will go out tonight and turn all kinds of Sandy Koufax in his first start for the Angels. That would be this Rays season all over, wouldn't it?

Oh, it's a great morning to be a second-guesser. It's a great morning to say the Rays waved the white flag by dealing young Kaz, though they didn't. Rays owner Stu Sternberg was in the small house Tuesday. Say, didn't he say earlier this season that his team wouldn't cut payroll so long as it was in the race? Oh, it's quite a morning.

OK, enough. I think Scotty K would have been just as capable of coming up with a big fat L as our man Sonny did. Heck, Sonnanstine's 91 pitches in getting just 12 outs seemed a righteous farewell salute to Kaz.

The Rays aren't going to miss the playoffs because they don't have Scott Kazmir. They're going to miss them because they don't deserve to make them no matter who they have.

They played like it Tuesday. Sonnanstine gave up those runs, but two were unearned. Akinori Iwamura and Carlos Pena both kicked balls. Later, Carl Crawford dropped one in left field to set up another unearned run. The Red Sox cashed in as if it was a down payment on the burial plot for the team that beat them out of a pennant last season. Maybe they were.

Every time the Rays seemed to have turned a corner this season, there has just been another corner. They swept two games from Boston in early August to pull within 1 1/2 games of the wild-card lead. They're 11-12 since then. The wild-card hole: Boston's lead is six games.

Mind you, they've teased us with old magic, even on Tuesday, which mirrored this season - not quite in it, not quite out of it. Down 7-2 in the eighth, the Rays got RBI singles from Pat Burrell and Dioner Navarro, a combo that has occurred with Hale-Bopp frequency in 2009.

But then Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon came in with the bases loaded and no one out and put an end to all the nonsense, aided by another great catch by center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury and an oafish no-tag-up at third by Burrell. So much for magic.

The Rays still have five games left with Boston, including two more here, but does it really feel like it's going to matter? If they didn't need to sweep this series (I think they did), they at least needed to pretend that they did for at least nine innings.

I don't think trading Kazmir was waving the white flag. Five months of up-down baseball has waved it. And the first game of the final month of the season has waved it again. September's song has begun. It feels like a dirge.

And now we'll take our next Kaz caller. ...