By TERRY NAU

Sports editor

Do the Tampa Bay Rays represent a bigger threat to Boston’s reign in the American League East than the New York Yankees? That would appear to be the case, based on evidence compiled so far this season.
Tampa just seems like a team better suited to chase the Red Sox. The Rays have youth, talent, solid starting pitching and an excellent bullpen that starts taking over games in the sixth inning. The Yankees are older, lack solid starting pitching and their bullpen remains inconsistent.
And the Red Sox? Even without David Ortiz for the past few weeks, Boston has hit enough to keep playing .600 baseball. Its pitching staff has survived injuries to Curt Schilling and Daisuke Matsuzaka to maintain a slight lead over Tampa and five games on the Yankees as we head into a very interesting slate of games involving all three teams next week.

Boston visits Tampa Bay next Monday for three games, marking the first meeting between these new rivals since their beanball battle in Boston earlier this month. The Rays will open the series with the pitcher (James Shields) who knocked down Coco Crisp, initiating a benches-clearing episode that resulted in fines and suspensions for several players on each squad.
Crisp has yet to begin serving his suspension thanks to an appeal that was finally heard earlier this week. It’s quite possible his seven-game ban will be shortened with the American League timing its decision so that Crisp’s suspension will take him out of the Tampa series. That would make sense as the Rays have already threatened to renew hostilities when Boston comes to town. The Rays, it seems, are a very feisty team this year.
Crisp’s decision to charge the mound was a little self-serving. Nothing good happens when players charge the pitcher who threw at them. Someone could get hurt. And even more certain is that players will be suspended. When he begins serving his suspension, Crisp will leave Boston short one outfielder at a time when Manny Ramirez’s hamstring is still barking.
The spotlight should be on baseball next week, not side issues. Tampa Bay has proven it can hang with the heavyweights in both leagues over the first half of the 2008 season. The Rays are 30-13 at home and 15-18 on the road after rallying past their Florida cousins – the Marlins – before a crowd of just over 12,000 fans on Tuesday night.
After the Red Sox leave Tampa, they head to Yankee Stadium for a four-game series beginning next Thursday. And here is where Boston meets up with a Yankee team that is only a few games over .500 thanks to ineffective starting pitching and a shaky bullpen. Two members of New York’s current starting rotation are named Darrell Rasner and Dan Geise. Case closed.
The Yankees have integrated hard-throwing Joba Chamberlain into their starting five, which was hardly the plan in April. In a perfect Yankee world, manager Joe Girardi would have transitioned Chamberlain into a starter’s role two months later than circumstances this season have dictated. But Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy spit the bit, and then got hurt, leaving the Yankees’ braintrust no other option than to bring Joba out of the bullpen.
New York is on the verge of replacing GM Brian Cashman’s latest pitching mistake – LaTroy Hawkins. Look for reliever David Robertson (3-0, 1.74 ERA with 45 strikeouts in 31 innings) to come up from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre when LaTroy comes down with a fake injury.
Speaking of Scranton, they’ve just been passed for first place in the International League East by the heavy hitters from Pawtucket. Pennant races often go unnoticed in minor league towns because the emphasis is more on helping out the parent club, something the PawSox have done very well this season. Better count Portland in there, too, because where would the Red Sox be without Justin Masterson, who is 4-1 thus far and could end up in the bullpen when the pennant race gets serious in August? The lanky sidearmer will be a great situational reliever against righthanded hitters, coming in when a ground ball is needed. Think Ramiro Mendoza in his prime years with the Yankees.
Scranton held an interesting promotion the other day, bringing back several key players from the 1978 American League pennant playoff game between Boston and New York. That just shows how creative the Yankees’ Triple-A franchise has become in luring fans to its games.
Of course, Pawtucket would hardly be interested in recreating the Bucky Dent game. The PawSox have had a lot of success reliving “The Longest Game” over the years.

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Two local professional players find themselves back in the Florida State League trying to regain their old form following injuries. Woonsocket native Rocco Baldelli is playing every other day for Vero Beach and hit two homers in the same game back on June 17. The Tampa Bay Rays are taking things very slowly with Rocco, who is battling back from a fatigue issue that has sapped his stamina this season.
If Rocco regains his batting stroke, he could help Tampa in a DH role later this summer, perhaps after rosters expand in September. Or sooner if he makes a breakthrough in his physical situation.
The other local player in the Florida State League is Pawtucket’s Jay Rainville, who was demoted from New Britain of the Eastern League two weeks ago. Rainville’s earned run average with New Britain had gone back over 7.00. He wasn’t fooling anybody in the Eastern League so the parent Minnesota Twins sent him back down to the Class A Advanced level, hoping he might straighten himself out without doing any more damage to his psyche.
Rainville has pitched twice for Fort Myers, throwing two shutout innings in a relief role, then going 6.2 innings in his first start, allowing three runs while walking none and striking out seven batters. He will be given a long leash this season by Minnesota for a couple of reasons. One, he is still trying to regain arm strength and velocity from his 2006 shoulder surgery. And second, he is a former first-round (43rd overall) draft pick in 2004.
The Twins invested a lot of money in the 22-year-old righthander. They are a patient organization and they are showing it right now.
Pretty soon, though, Jay will need to reward the Twins by pitching consistent baseball. Minnesota cannot wait on him forever.