BOSTON — For about half an inning, the Tampa Bay Rays were in real trouble.

A four-game losing streak had helped cut their lead in the AL East to one-half game, and the Boston Red Sox had just taken an eighth-inning lead that — as long as Jonathan Papelbon could protect it — would have knocked Tampa Bay from the top of the division.

Then fresh-off-the-plane callup Dan Johnson homered to tie it and the Rays won on Tuesday night to hold on to first place. They followed that win with another on Carlos Pena's three-run homer in the 14th inning that gave them the edge in the three-game series.

"This team is obviously energized because of it and the ways we've won it," Pena said. "It's been exciting both days and to do it at Fenway Park is even better. We're going to enjoy it."

The Rays left Boston for a weekend series with the New York Yankees, who have fallen out of playoff contention and into fourth place in the AL East. The Red Sox begin a four-game series with the third-place Toronto Blue Jays on Friday.

After failing to pass the Rays head-to-head, the Red Sox still have 17 games left to erase the remaining 2 1/2-game cushion. And, if they don't, there's always the wild-card: The Minnesota Twins trailed Boston by 5 1/2 games following their loss today to Kansas City.

The Rays went 66-96 last season — the worst record in the majors, and their 10th losing season in 10 since they became an expansion franchise in 1998. But they have spent more than half of this season in first place, briefly falling into second at the All-Star break after losing seven in a row.

Since then they have gone 32-18 and, despite losing Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria and Troy Percival in August, the Rays went 14-5 to finish the month.

"I don't know if it's destiny for us," manager Joe Maddon said. "I'd like to think it's the concepts we have coming together. The thing I like is we have the same work effort."

Johnson, called up from Triple-A earlier in the day but scratched from the lineup when he didn't arrive at the ballpark in time, homered in the ninth inning on Tuesday night, and Dioner Navarro doubled in the game-winner for the Rays first victory in Boston this season. A day later, Pena made it two in a row with his extra-inning shot.

Now it's the Rays who have solidified their spot atop the division and the Red Sox wondering what went wrong.

"We want to win the division," Maddon said. "We've gotten to this point. It's a matter of pride. We want to put up that flag that says we won the division. This isn't the Patriot League."

Mike Timlin, who surrendered the go-ahead homer to Pena, isn't ready to settle for the wild-card, either.

"It's not like it puts us out of the race by any means," he said. "We just drop back one more game, but we're still in it quite a bit. We're not hanging our heads. Yeah, they beat us in this series, but we have a good team. We're going to do a great job down the road."

Although the Red Sox still have their cushion in the wild-card, the tight division race could keep manager Terry Francona from setting up his pitching rotation or resting his regulars as much as he'd like to down the stretch. In both World Series years, the Red Sox coasted into the playoffs and had a chance to pull back.

"In '05 we had to go right to the end and didn't have things set up the way we wanted to," he said of the year the Red Sox didn't clinch a playoff berth until the final day, then lost in the first round to the Chicago White Sox. "In '04 and last year, we had things the way we wanted to."