BOSTON | Just for the record, it <em>is</em> the Boston Red Sox who are the defending world champions.</p><p>Um &#8230; right?</p><p>Not for long, if this American League Championship Series doesn&#8217;t change &#8212; and fast. The Rays showed off again, slamming three homers over the Green Monster while taking a 13-4 victory and 3-1 series lead Tuesday at Fenway Park.</p><p>One more win in the next three games, and this ridiculous string of words will be factually accurate: the Tampa Bay Rays are playing in the World Series.</p><p>&#8220;I know, I can&#8217;t believe it,&#8221; Rays&#8217; third baseman Evan Longoria said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to believe it yet.&#8221;</p><p>For the second straight night, Fenway Park fell graveyard silent in the later innings as a stunned Boston fan base copes with the growing realization that their defending champions are getting their rears kicked by a team that had the worst record in baseball last year.</p><p>Carl Crawford had five hits, Willy Aybar had five RBIs, and these Rays are the first team in postseason history to score at least nine runs in three consecutive games. Maybe now the baseball world is beginning to believe?</p><p>While Fenway and the surrounding streets hushed &#8212; save some appropriate cussing &#8212; the cramped visitors clubhouse was again a party. Lil Wayne rapped on the speakers about money, highlights of Longoria&#8217;s home run flashed on the television, and Aybar talked about how he couldn&#8217;t ever remember hitting a ball as hard as his third-inning homer that cleared the Green Monster.</p><p>Fox executives can&#8217;t like it, but for everyone else, these Rays are turning heads, one national TV appearance at a time.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;re watching the whole thing unfold,&#8221; Rays manager Joe Maddon said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very unusual to be able to do that here.&#8221;</p><p>Red Sox fans have the better part of two days to torture themselves before Thursday&#8217;s game five, and the rest of the country&#8217;s sports fans have that long to celebrate the stress of a city that&#8217;s known little other than success the past five years.</p><p>The Rays&#8217; surprise success in the regular season came mostly on their ability to play defense, pitch, and use line drives and speed to create offense. But they&#8217;re showing a national television audience that they can mash it, too. In these two games at Fenway they&#8217;ve made the Green Monster seem like a chip shot.</p><p>Carlos Pe&#241;a, Longoria, and Aybar all cleared the 37-foot wall. Aybar&#8217;s was the Rays&#8217; 10th home run in 22 1/3 innings. As much as Boston&#8217;s past championship runs have been built on starting pitching, its 2008 playoff run is being killed by it.</p><p>Tim Wakefield&#8217;s knuckleball didn&#8217;t dance, instead staying up in the zone where it was clobbered for five runs, including those three homers in 2 2/3 innings. Boston&#8217;s last three starting pitchers have given up 17 runs in 12 2/3 innings.</p><p>&#8220;Sitting through that wasn&#8217;t a whole lot of fun,&#8221; Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been on the other side. When it happens to you, you&#8217;ve got to get through it the best you can.&#8221;</p><p>Oh, it&#8217;s still at least two days too soon to write the obituary on Boston&#8217;s season. Daisuke Matsuzaka starts Thursday&#8217;s game five, and he shut down the Rays over seven innings earlier this series.</p><p>These are still the Red Sox, and even if they&#8217;re not quite what they were in their two recent championship years, there is still $133 million of talent on this roster and the guts of one comeback after being down 3-1 in last year&#8217;s ALCS. Maybe David Ortiz is dangerous again after hitting a triple.</p><p>Boston has its problems, but what&#8217;s going on with this series is at least as much about Tampa Bay playing like a championship team with a line of previously anonymous ballplayers making themselves famous.</p><p>The latest was Andy Sonnanstine, who gave up just three earned runs in 7 1/3 innings, his longest start since August.</p><p>This Red Sox lineup, with all its patient hitters, used to be a starting pitcher&#8217;s nightmare. Sonnanstine needed just 67 pitches for his first six innings, and 96 total.</p><p>&#8220;For me it was awesome,&#8221; Sonnanstine said. &#8220;Before I even threw the first pitch of the game, I was already off to a 3-0 lead.&#8221;