Emotional roller coaster ends with the Rays breaking the .500 ceiling

Talk about a roller coaster ride.  The Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees battled it out for 3 and 1/2 hours of up and down baseball. But, when the smoke cleared... the Rays held on and showed the Yankees why the AL East is far from a done deal.  

I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my nails as Dan Wheeler gave up back-to-back doubles that lead to two runs. I jumped out of my seat and celebrated when Joe Dillionaire knocked in Ben Zobrist with an RBI single. I screamed at the umps on my TV screen with Grant Balfour when the Rays got a bad call.  I screamed again with Joe Maddon on a bang/bang double play call that went the other way.

This game featured everything that's great about baseball: Dominant pitching. Clutch hitting. Lead changes.  It also featured some of what's bad with baseball: Bad umpiring. Launching pad stadiums. And plenty of errors to go around.

But, in the end, the "W" was one of the biggest of the season.  Later this year, we could point to this game as a big turning point in the season.  The Rays have finally won 4 in a row.  They were able to continually overcome adversity throughout the game and get the win.  The Rays are getting all this done, missing 4 of their opening day starters.  A patchwork lineup of bench guys and Durham guys are keeping the team in this hunt and giving them the chance stay close in the ultra competitive AL East.

Does this team have problems? Certainly.  But, now they're showing that they can win the kind of game they won last year.  Is it easy to watch as a fan? No. But, games like this is what make baseball so great... especially when your team wins!