When Fox contributor Tom Verducci asked Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon (right) about the situation his team finds itself in -- forced to play a decisive seventh game to get to the World Series after having the ALCS all but wrapped up on Thursday night -- he got a typical upbeat Joe Maddon response.

"We're in a great position,'' Maddon replied. "We're in the seventh game of the ALCS. The first day of spring training, we'd have taken this. We'll see what happens."

I think I know what's going to happen and TBS analyst Dennis Eckersley apparently does, too, since he said before last night's game that if the Rays lost Game 6 they would not be able to recover. Of course, I said on Thursday night that they were toast, so I was a couple days ahead of him.

It isn't unanimous, however, Cal Ripken countered during the postgame show that the Red Sox have used up too much energy getting to this point and will have trouble getting to the finish line. He's picking the Rays tonight. Don't like to gainsay the Iron Man, but he apparently didn't notice that the Rays were so tight they were having trouble making the routine plays in Game 6. They didn't handle the pressure and the pressure is only going to increase tonight.

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