Our playoff odds are down to 13.8%. We have 47 games remaining against teams with a combined .519 win percentage. The wild card is five games out and if you assume the Red Sox continue playing .574 ball for their remaining 47 games, then the Rays need to go 33-14 to top them. That's 70% ball and against a collective group of opponents with a 52% win percentage themselves; in simple terms: that's not easy. The Rays have to play like the best team in baseball for the next 50 games and hope the Red Sox play like they have all year. Any kind of hot streak and you can forget about it. Observe:
| GR | BOS W | BOS W% | TB W | TB W% |
| 47 | 29 | 0.617 | 35 | 0.745 |
| 47 | 28 | 0.596 | 34 | 0.723 |
| 47 | 27 | 0.574 | 33 | 0.702 |
| 47 | 26 | 0.553 | 32 | 0.681 |
| 47 | 25 | 0.532 | 31 | 0.66 |
Looks pretty desolate, right? Well, did I mention that even if Boston falls apart, we still have Texas 3.5 ahead of us? Even if we win the next two games and Boston loses - pulling them to 3 games, Texas will have a lead of about the same distance. Now, we do play both a few times from here on out, and 3.5 games seems more doable than 5, but ... it's probably time to face reality and realize there's not a whole lot of hope for playoff baseball.
Yeah, it's a bit disappointing, but we played competitive ball through most of August for the second consecutive year. If you've worn Rays gear for longer than a minute you realize this is a pretty fantastic achievement on its own. Those calling it lousy have their Yankees caps on, or probably never took them off to begin with.