Future generations will see the box score from last night’s game and simply see the Sox won a good old-fashioned AL home run derby, and for all intents and purposes that’s awesome; considering the makeup of the Sox (and especially considering the makeup of the Rays) an air show was probably the only true recipe for success.

The Rays, the thinking goes, are a team of jackrabbits and hot rods, built for old-timey baseball and the kind of fundamental, one-run-at-a-time game so many organizations espouse yet so few execute. This is probably mostly a testament to their collective youth and general speediness, but people often overlook one glaring element of the 2009 Rays’ offensive attack: they also hit a lot of home runs. Third-most in the American League, as of this writing, and more than even our beloved South Side Lumber Company.

All of which brings us back to Monday’s matchup and the Rays’ three solo shots, which most certainly weren’t flukes and probably can’t be written off as a nonexistent threat throughout the rest of the series. Gavin Floyd certainly got lucky on a few plays tonight (although Carl Crawford’s inside-the-park home run was practically gift-wrapped by Scotty Pods), but it’s dismissive to say the Rays were doing anything out of the ordinary. If anything, they were only doing the other thing they do, the dimension beyond their hilariously large lead in the stolen base column.

So you take a team like the Sox, all long ball and whatnot, and you say they don’t stand a chance because the Rays can run, but the real problem rests not in the Rays’ legs but in their wholeness. Third in team average; second in on-base percentage; third in slugging; third in home runs; first in stolen bases; first in walks; Tampa Bay doesn’t just boast a good team, but a complete one, which is how you end up with bizarre outcomes like Monday night.

Gavin Floyd gets shelled while only surrendering three runs, Bobby Jenks effectively blows a save while simultaneously recording one and the Sox somehow outslug and outrun the best-running and best-hitting team in the league. If this is what second place looks like, life on top might just be unbearable torture.