Seven outs. Seven outs away from the World Series, the potential start of a decade’s worth of contentiondammit.

Though we’ve taken plenty of shots at the Rays all season, we secretly have been rooting heavily for them to eliminate Boston, partially to make this post look prophetic, and also because as a Yankees’ fan, you can never, ever root for the Red Sox in the postseason. But we don’t matter. JD Drew and David Ortiz, whose bats finally awoke late last night against the Rays’ bullpen, do.

As we mentioned yesterday, five years ago on Oct. 16, Aaron Boone beat the Red Sox in Game Seven. In that game, Boston’s manager, Grady Little, essentially lost his job because he left Pedro Martinez on the mound one batter too long. Obviously Tampa’s Joe Maddon isn’t going anywhere soon, but did he yank Kazmir too early?

We’ll leave you with an unsettling choice of words from Carl Crawford: “I just can’t believe what happened tonight. It’s devastating.” Oh, and guess who is pitching Game Six Saturday night at the Trop? Josh Beckett. Though he’s struggled in two postseason starts, he is considered one of the best postseason pitchers in baseball history.

Busy Saturday night, what with UFC, boxing, LSU at Spurrier, Missouri at Texas, and VT at BC. At least Boston’s going to provide everyone with something to watch Sunday night, since nobody’s going to be able to stomach a minute of the Seattle-Tampa shit show on NBC.