Tuesday, 4 a.m.

Want to talk history? Want to talk payrolls? Want to talk legends?

Or, perhaps, you would prefer to talk about now.

And the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays jumped to a huge two-game lead in their American League playoff series against the Yankees. The Rays won for the 100th time this season (98 in the regular season) with a 5-2 victory at Tropicana Field.

"It's pretty significant," Cash said of the series lead. "We're getting ready to go to a place that obviously they play well there. They have a tremendous fan base that really supports them. It's going to be challenging, but, I mean, we've set ourselves up in a good way by getting on a plane here up 2-0."

Once again, the Rays played to a crowd of more than 40,000. Once again, they had dominating pitching. Once again, they had key hits against a quality opposing pitcher.

The Yankees struggled to play defense, committing four errors (it was five before a scoring change). New York has only five hits in their two losses.

The Yankees finally scored on Monday night, but it was because of Ben Rice's two solo homers.

The Rays weren't perfect. They were one-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

But Tampa Bay came through in a four-run fifth inning. Richie Palacios had the big hit, a two-out, two-strike single that drove in two runs.

"That at-bat and the hit was probably the biggest hit in the game for us, the two-run single with two outs," Cash said. "And he's from New York. Very close to Yankee Stadium, I believe.

"So, look, we're seeing a healthy player. We've seen Richie in the past when before his knee in. He seems as much as anybody in our lineup to really rise to the occasion when we need him to come through. He's come through so many times for us."

The Yankees' shoddy defense aided in the Rays' other runs. In the first, Yandy Diaz came in on Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s wild throw to first.

In the fifth, Jonathan Aranda scored on a ground out by Aranda. Caminero scored on a fielder's choice when George Lombard Jr.'s fielder's choice, leading to Palacios' two-run single.

Freddy Peralta started for the Rays. He allowed one run and three hits in 4 2/3 innings. But for the Rays, the key was the bullpen. Cam Booser worked his way out of trouble in the fifth when he induced a 400-foot fly from Cody Bellinger.

Then Ian Seymour, a starter in the regular season, came in and pitched three shutout innings, giving up just one hit. Bryan Baker retired the Yankees in order in the ninth inning for his second save of the post-season.

The Rays worked pitcher Cam Schlitter hard, getting six hits off of him in 4 1/3 innings.

Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero each had two hits for the Rays.

For the Rays to lose the series, they would have to fall to the Yankees in three straight games.

The series moves to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Nick Martinez will start for the Rays against Max Fried.

Tuesday, 3 p.m.

The Tampa Bay Lightning seems to be easing into its new season.

Still, nights like this will do until things get serious.

The Bolts won their second game in three tries Monday night, stopping the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 at Benchmark International Arena.

Granted, the Bolts are still having trouble finishing -- they outshot the Flyers 36-14, but led only 2-1 going into the third period. And the power play remains unplugged -- it's now 0-13 on the young season.

But a sturdy defense led the Bolts to a three-goal win.

Pontus Holmberg and Ilya Mikheyev each had a goal and an assist to pace the Bolts. Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel each had theie first goals of the season.

Hagel's goal was an empty-netter.

The Bolts play the Minnesota Wild Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Benchmark Arena.

Monday, 4 a.m.

In his first test, you'd probably give the rookie quarterback a C.

Around him, however, there were too many Fs for the Bucs to survive in a 17-14 loss to Green Bay at Raymond James Stadium.

There were some nice moments in Jalon Daniels' debut. He hit 19 of 27 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown. He had 55 yards rushing. He had poise for a rookie free agent.

Ah, but he threw two interceptions, he took three sacks, and he failed to convert on a last-minute drive when a field goal would have tied it.

Still, Daniels was far from the worst player on the field.

Give an F to the offensive line. By reputation, it's one of the Bucs' best units. But it gave up three sacks, and gave up heavy pressures to the Packers on the final drive. Add in a wayward snap that nearly resulted in a safety, and you have a unit in flux.

Give an F to the secondary. Too often, it seemed Packers' quarterback Jordan Love was merely playing pitch and catch with his receivers. He hit 22 of 30 passes.

Give an F to the defensive line. They had no sacks, and they gave up 86 yards to the league's worst rushing attack.

Give an F to tackling. Give an F to coaching. Give an F to time of possession. And so on.

It all added up to an 0-4 start, the first time the Bucs have been 0-4 since 2013. With Baker Mayfield out at least two more weeks (and as many as five), it may be time for fans to start to study the draft.

"It's on us," Bucs' coach Todd Bowles said. "We know what the problem is -- it's on us. We can't keep getting close and not winning. That's not good enough. Our record says what we are -- we're 0-4 and until we acknowledge that and we correct our mistakes, it's going to keep happening. We have to execute, and that's the only way you can win the ball game."

Say this for Daniels. He at least made things interesting. Can he get better? It's a must. It's the NFL, after all.

"He had some ups and he had some downs," Bowles said, "but that was his first time out there. He didn't panic. He didn't do anything. He escaped, used his legs well at times."

Daniels didn't sound impressed with his debut.

"Obviously, I'm not happy with the result," Daniels said. "At this position you want to be able to go out there and win a football game and we ended up coming up short."

The Bucs are on the road in Dallas to play the Cowboys on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. After that comes games against the Steelers, Panthers and Falcons.

So who knows when the Bucs will win their first game?

Or if?