Almost stammering with excitement, the remnants of a celebratory shaving-cream pie still clinging to his shirt and ears, Jason Hammel summed up what transpired the past three evenings at Fenway Park rather succinctly.
"If that's what playoff baseball's all about," said Hammel, "it's going to be fun."
Not to mention exhausting. For the second straight evening Wednesday, the Rays and Red Sox pushed the dramatic envelope about as far as it will go in mid-September and Tampa Bay came out on top in breathtaking fashion. Carlos Pena's three-run homer in the top of the 14th inning finally put the Rays on top and Hammel's impromptu work as the emergency closer in the bottom half after Troy Percival went down again sealed a 4-2 Tampa Bay victory.
After Percival allowed a double and two walks in the bottom of the 14th, Rays manager Joe Maddon removed him from the game.
Afterward, Percival explained that his back had locked up on him as he warmed up for the third or fourth time in the 5-hour, 2-minute marathon.
"Come that 14th inning when I got up, I probably could have told my manager," Percival admitted. "But I thought, you know what, three-run lead, I'll go out there and pound the strike zone and see what happens. But I had a hard time pounding the strike zone - I couldn't get it in there."
Hammel got Kevin Youkilis to fly to right, which scored a run. He then struck out Jason Bay and got Alex Cora to fly out.
"You've got to give Jason Hammel a lot of credit," said Maddon. "My God, coming in with the bases loaded, that part of the batting order, to do what he did after what had happened in the recent past, that's truly a tremendous performance."
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