Quick question/tangent while waiting for Friday to turn into 2:05 p.m. Monday:

Have I been underestimating the Tampa Bay Rays this season?

I've made predictions in various forms on the AL East race in roughly 1,998 different places on Boston.com the last several weeks, and I'm pretty sure I've gone Red Sox-Yanks-Rays in all of them. I am genuinely confident that the Sox will win the division -- their staggering pitching depth will carry them, and general manager Theo Epstein will get a big bat before the July 31 deadline should they require one.

And while I find this Yankees team intriguing -- A.J. Burnett and Joba Chamberlain could combine for 35 wins, or they could total a dozen, and I wouldn't be surprised by either result -- the bullpen is suspect beyond the ageless Mariano Rivera, and there are too many aging players in crucial roles. Plus, Joe Girardi is entirely the wrong man for the job.

Which brings us to the third-place Rays. No doubt you're well-versed in their unlikely feats of a year ago. They are reigning division champions -- we're still waiting for that September collapse -- and winners of 97 games. While the tendency is to dismiss them as a fluke or a lesser light compared to the two AL East behemoths, it doesn't take much investigation to recognize the truth:

This is a thoroughly impressive -- perhaps more impressive -- baseball team, and if the '07 Rays were the reincarnation of the '91 Atlanta Braves, it's not a stretch to see them build on their worst-to-first season. Remember, the '92 Braves made it back to the World Series, losing to a loaded Blue Jays team in six games.