Pressbox

With the best record in Major League Baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays may be worrying television executives hoping for a Chicago Cubs-Boston Red Sox World Series. But the red-hot baseball team is drumming up record numbers in its home market.

Tuesday night’s winning game against the Red Sox drew the highest rating ever for a Rays game on television with a 9.1; that made it the top-rated television program in the Tampa area. In fact, last night’s game demolished FSN Florida’s previous record TV HH rating for a Rays game on the regional cable network, which was a 4.5 on June 19 vs. the Chicago Cubs.

That score is up 203% over the season-to-date 3.0 rating, which itself is up 36% over 2007 numbers.

With major-market teams from Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia all in serious contention to make the playoffs, Tampa Bay could well play spoiler to those big-market draws. Just don’t tell that to fans in Tampa.