What's familiar to Sox is foreign to Rays

BOSTON -- Rays manager Joe Maddon prepped his young club for the emotional swings of the postseason by sermonizing on the 1960 World Series -- the one the Pittsburgh Pirates won amid three blowout losses.
Who knew Maddon was projecting the Rays to play the part of the '60 Yankees -- the Bombers who won games by scores of 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0?
But there were the Rays following Monday's 9-1 win over the Red Sox with a 13-4 triumph on Tuesday -- a day after the 48th anniversary, incidentally, of Bill Mazeroski's iconic winning homer in that 1960 World Series -- to take a firm 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series.
And here are the Red Sox, in a familiar jam.
It isn't like the Red Sox want to make a habit of leaping to life just as the closing credits start to roll, like the die-hard villain in some cheap horror flick.
This isn't by choice.
But for the third time in five Octobers, Boston faces a daunting comeback road, a journey that Daisuke Matsuzaka will have to kick-start when he rematches with James Shields in Thursday night's Game 5.
By taking each of the first two Fenway Park segments, the Rays have assured Tropicana Field of hosting more 2008 baseball. The only question is, will it be for the continuation of the ALCS, the start of the (gulp!) World Series or both?
Prospects of that are reminiscent of the final innings of the 2007 National League Championship Series, as fans at Coors Field hyperventilated while watching the final innings of the Rockies' sweep over the D-backs.
"The World Series ... coming here?! I can't believe it," they said while making their dazed ways through the stands. "I've watched it on TV all these years, and in a couple of days now, they'll be painting that World Series logo on this field."
So within a couple miles of the district known as the Back Bay, the Red Sox must begin to come back on Tampa Bay.
Matsuzaka gives them that hope because, before the Rays began abusing Boston's other starters, he had pitched brilliantly in the Red Sox's 2-0 Game 1 victory.
All the Red Sox's offense asks of Dice-K is the opportunity to take a lead for a change.
Despite Tuesday night's blowout loss, the Red Sox came out of it with a good, forward-looking feeling. Although held to seven hits by Andy Sonnanstine and a couple of relievers, the Sox felt they had at least as many hard shots that just didn't find any holes.
"A loss like that is easier to swallow than a 9-8 heartbreaker," said Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, alluding to a Game 2 defeat that took 11 innings. "A lot of our guys hit the ball hard, without having much to show for it. We didn't get a lot of bleeder hits [like the Rays did].
"I feel like we had a lot of great at-bats, but when they score 13 ... it's tough to win games like that."
In his series-opening assignment, Matsuzaka survived tempting the Rays with fits of wildness. He even wound up holding them hitless into the seventh inning.
That was a different, tentative team. Against the aggressive crew now on display, Dice-K is unlikely to get away with walking the bases loaded in the first.
The Red Sox hope that Wednesday's break in the ALCS schedule takes some wind out of the Rays' sails.
It is not an idle thought: The schedule was identical during the 2007 ALCS and, in retrospect, both the Red Sox and the Indians had considered the bye between Games 4 and 5 instrumental.
Boston, of course, had gone into that off-day trailing, 3-1, and came out of it with three wins and the AL pennant.
To draw attention to the circumstances would be to dwell on a negative, in the opinion of Tampa Bay's manager.
"I know a lot of times in these moments, you're going to draw parallels and comparisons," Maddon said. "But every situation is unique unto itself. I prefer not worrying about what happened in the past."
Well, not the near past. On the other hand, 1960 is fair game.