For First Time, Rays' September Games Mean Something

Welcome to a very different September.

Welcome to the first meaningful stretch run in Rays' franchise history. It's a real, live pennant race.

"It's why you play this game," Rays first baseman Carlos Pena said.

The Rays are protecting a five-game lead in the American League East, and the final month begins tonight when the New York Yankees visit Tropicana Field.

"You don't know how you're going to react until you go through it," said former catcher Mike Heath, a member of the 1987 Detroit Tigers, who won the AL East by defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 1-0 on the season's final day. "It's either the best days of your career - or the worst days.

"If you come that far and don't get it postseason, it's the emptiest feeling you'll have."

Every game, every inning, every at-bat, every pitch can be magnified.

You can be immortalized for deeds (Bobby Thomson) or misdeeds (Fred Merkle). The obscure can become famous (Bucky Dent). A lengthy career can be defined by two horrible weeks (Gene Mauch).

"I'm as nauseous as I've ever been," St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa once famously said in the final week of a pennant race. "I have a terrible headache. My head is pounding. I feel like throwing up and I'm having trouble swallowing.

"And the beauty of it is, you want to feel like this every day."

Such feelings are new to most of the Rays.

Manager Joe Maddon is preaching moderation.

"I like to believe if I get my exercise in and have a glass of wine, I'll have a good night's sleep," said Maddon, smiling. "This time of year, I think it's important to say as little as possible, unless it's something specific. Even if you think you're attempting to ease someone's mind, you're probably just adding to the burden.

"They know what's at stake. They know what to do. This isn't football. We do this every night. This time of year, there's a big glare in your face. So just relax and do what you do."

Tigers catcher Brandon Inge said the Rays never will play in a more adrenaline-filled month. Three seasons after experiencing 119 losses, Inge was part of a riveting AL Central race in 2006, when the Tigers eventually reached the World Series.

"When you're out of it, face it, September is the worst month," Inge said. "You just want to be respectable. Then you go home and you don't even care about watching baseball. You have no idea how good the postseason is.

"When you're in the thick of it, like the Rays, you get that pennant-race mentality. You show up to the yard and you're like, 'Let's crush this team. Don't even give them a chance. Don't let them breathe.' You live in a bubble because everything is about that single game. It's all about the grind."

In modern baseball, the grind has a qualifier - the wild card. So this AL East race may not have the do-or-die backdrop that existed with the old postseason format, when the 104-win Atlanta Braves pushed past the 103-win San Francisco Giants on the 1993 regular season's final day.

"It was a hard lesson," said Rays bench coach Dave Martinez, an outfielder for the Giants. "You win 103 games and you go home? When I tell people that now, you can see the jaws drop.

"You tend to second-guess things. You could've done something different in one game. You could've run harder or made a better pitch. That's why we tell our guys to give it everything, and not have regrets."

First baseman Fred McGriff, acquired by the Braves the same mid-summer week in which they trailed the Giants by 10 games, said he noticed a curious quality when Atlanta began its charge.

"The Giants were in first place," McGriff said. "But it seemed like they were chasing us. Instead of playing to win, sometimes you can be playing not to lose. You've got to understand the difference."

Rays closer Troy Percival knows about that.

With the 1995 Angels, who led the AL West by 101/2 games on Aug. 16, he experienced a pair of nine-game losing streaks down the stretch. It allowed Seattle to catch up, then win a one-game playoff.

"I think our guys actually reacted to the pennant-race pressure," Percival said. "We started making mistakes we wouldn't ordinarily make.

"Now this team Rays, even with its youth in spots, is not like that. We don't ride the highs or lows. When the game is over, 30 minutes afterward, it's over. I've never been around a team that does a better job of that. And that's the quality you need."