On September 16th, the Tampa Bay Rays took one on the chin from their primary contenders, who also happen to be the defending World Champions. After the Boston Red Sox waxed Rays ace Scott Kazmir, they were mere percentage points behind Tampa Bay for first place in the AL East. Two days later, the tables turned.  The hard-charging Sox tripped over themselves and tumbled back into second place, losers of both the three-game series and the season series. Since then, Tampa Bay has officially clinched their first post-season berth, and are all but a lock to finish in first place. Next to sorting out their first-ever ALDS pitching rotation, the team’s biggest problem is trying to find someone to throw out the first pitch for their inaugural playoff game.

Or is it? As remarkable and unlikely and all-but unpredictable as their performance has been this year, the question still remains — who are the Tampa Bay Rays? Are they the team that’s been one of baseball’s best the entire 2008 season, the team that won their season series against the Red Sox for the first time this century? Or are they the team that used to ride with the Devil, the team that served up half-a-dozen taters to their divisional rivals just last week?  Are they going to continue their improbable magic carpet ride all the way to the World Series?  Or are their pitchers going to show that they were born to be wild?  (Yeah, you might be laughing at me, but I’d like to see you try to squeeze in a Steppenwolf pun!)

One thing to keep in mind if the Rays manage to win their first division championship: the wildcard has won three of the last six World Series, and each of the last six World Series have featured at least one wildcard team.  What does that mean?  It means there’s a lot of pressure to follow up a divisional championship with a World Championship.  After all, what good is a divisional pennant if you get beaten by a second place team?  Makes you wonder whether that AL East crown they’re about to capture might be made of fool’s gold, doesn’t it?

And the questions keep on coming.  Who will take the place of closer Troy Percival if he gets hurt again?  Who will lead the staff if Kazmir comes up lame?  Will Evan Longoria continue his torrid Rookie of the Year campaign?  Will Carlos Pena keep hitting clutch home runs?  Will first-round pick David Price pull a K-Rod and be a key member of the Rays playoff bullpen?  Will team MVP Jason Bartlett remember his glove after the regular season is finished?  Will mercurial center fielder B.J. Upton remember to hustle?  Will Joe Maddon be forced to bench a young player before a crucial must-win game?

Most importantly, what will success do to this team?  They’ve been breaking team records left and right this year, and sooner or later they might have more boxes to check off.  First Playoff Win.  First Playoff Series Win.  First AL Pennant.  First You-Know-What.  How’s that going to affect a team that just last year was looking up at the Baltimore Orioles?  In 2003, the Royals finished above .500 for the first time in ten years — they haven’t had a winning record since.  Last year’s 88-win Mariners team is this year’s 100-loss Mariners team.  Two years after representing the AL in the World Series, the Detroit Tigers are in danger of finishing behind the Royals.  Will these once-lovable losers, still the newest kids on MLB’s block, be able to handle the pressures of winning?

Well, no better time to find out than in October, right?  That’s when former Red Sox manager Grady Little found out that Pedro Martinez was a 100-pitch pitcher and became a former Red Sox manager.  That’s when Brad Lidge learned that you never, ever pitch to Albert Pujols with the game on the line.  That’s when the Arizona Diamondbacks discovered that Byung-Hyun Kim was as much a closer as I am a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.  That’s when Cubs fans learned about not interfering with balls in play.  That’s when Dusty Baker learned that you never give out game balls until after the game is over.  October’s as much about goats as is it about gamers, and there’s plenty of opportunity next month for Tampa Bay, and baseball fans, to find who eats garbage and who takes out the trash.

E$PN senior baseball writer Jayson Stark is a guy.