Congratulations are in order. Not to the Red Sox, although I’ll get to them in a minute. Congratulations to all the fans for helping break Cleveland’s fans’ record of 455 consecutive sellouts. It’s not exactly September 6, 1995 when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s iron man streak, but what makes this so cool is that it’s a record for us, the fans. One that absolutely couldn’t happen without us. Theoretically, the Sox could have come back from down 0-3 in 2004 in an empty stadium, or from being down 1-3 last season without a fan to watch. (Although I kinda doubt they would have played Dirty Watah following 297 out of 456 of those games without us.) But it’s cool to know that this is OUR record, the fan’s record. And yes, even the pink hats. For once they did something helpful.

As for the Sox, they certainly gave the fans a good show for all their hard work. Kotsay, Papi, Youks and Bay put up the 3 runs in the bottom of the first, and Lester and Paps made it hold up. Lester was magnificent, pitching 7.2 scoreless innings. Paps came for the save and looked like old Paps – four outs, 3 Ks. Between him and Lester, the Devil Rays fanned 12 times. What was a 5.5 game lead by the Devil Rays 9 days ago is now a half a game.

In the beginning of the season, hell, even a month ago, these were the games that the Devil Rays found a way to win. Their pitching manned up, and their offense squeeked by. Well, now it’s the Sox’ turn to do that…hopefully into an AL East title and more.