… and this time, it’s for a series! Seriously, how often can you say that about a third game with the Devil Rays. The Sox are so used to sweeping Tampa, they practically start marking up the schedule before games are even over these days.

Young Jon Boy returns to the mound tonight. And the Sox could use a nice bounce back.

But, as discussed a few days ago, this isn’t exactly your grandfather’s Devil Rays. Wait, scratch that. Your grandfather didn’t have Devil Rays. For that matter, neither did your father. So, these aren’t the Devil Rays of your older cousin who you kind of looked up to as a little kid because you only saw him at Thanksgiving and never knew about how he had two DUIs at age 17 and wrecked the car with weed in it.

This is - finally - a Devil Rays team that can win. At least a little. They’ve won five of six series. They proved last night that they can hit a ton, at least off an injured knuckleballer who has nothing going for him. They have a pair of top pitchers and even have a closer at the back of the pen who can get a couple people out if he needs to save a win.

So, this is actually a team. Really. Here, have a look, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

Luckily for the Sox, Edwin Jackson is not one of those pitches who can, well, win very often. He’s already had his one vampire performance against the Sox this year, so he should be down for the count.

But then again, Jon Lester may be, too. The young lefty has been nothing if not enigmatic. The upshot of Cancer Boy is that his best performance came last time out, when he finally saw the seventh inning of a game, shutting down the Orioles en route to another win. Tonight would be a perfect time for him to solidify his role as a true pitching factor for the Sox, with Wake’s problems last night giving more and more creedence to concerns that his back may not rebound in time to make him a playoff factor.

That’s not what the Sox need, nor is the continued absence of Manny Ramirez. It’s been terrific to watch young Jacoby Ellsbury surge at the plate - does anyone else get the feeling that his mere presence has improved J.D. Drew’s hitting out of straight-up fear of losing his spot - but even young Monsieur “Runs Real Fast” can’t keep up his big league power surge much longer, if at all.

So the Sox need more balanced offensive nights like yesterday’s, when they bombed away, inning after inning, in an almost brutal marathon. Can they do it again, this time against Edwin Jackson?

Time to find out.

– Cameron Smith