Not only did tonight’s Rays victory combined with Baltimore’s win over Boston catapult Tampa Bay into first place, the Rays also own the best record in the American League after tonight’s proceedings.

At 23-16 (.590), the Rays moved ahead of the Red Sox and the A’s (who lost at Cleveland) for the top spot in the entire league. Pretty remarkable stuff at this point in the season, considering where this team has come from.

Joe Maddon continues to try to downplay the gaudy numbers his team is piling up, but even he acknowledged that the Rays find themselves in a pleasant position at the moment.

“It’s wonderful, it’s great to be here, and a big part of it is the confidence that’s derived from it,” said Maddon. “You talk to our guys right now and they like this a lot, obviously – we all do.”

How did it come to this for the Rays? Mariano Rivera had the answer to that one in the Yankees’ clubhouse, as relayed by my colleague Martin Fennelly.

“Pitching,” said Rivera. “They have the pitching, they’re making plays, and they run. But the pitching is the most important thing.”

Rays starters have a 1.11 ERA over their last seven games and haven’t allowed a run in five of the last six games.

And how about J.P. Howell? The innings he has been eating up, particularly in tonight’s game and the 13-inning victory at Toronto last week, have been absolute black holes in the past. Before, the Rays would have to just roll the dice and pray with whoever they had left sitting around out in the bullpen. Now they know they can feel pretty confident that they’ll get at least a couple of good innings out of Howell, and that’s what he gave them again tonight.

As for Gabe Gross getting the game-winning hit off Rivera, who hadn’t allowed a run all season? Well, you can’t count on that becoming a regular occurrence.

“You don’t see that very often, Mariano getting beat like that – he’s too great,” said Troy Percival. “But it happens sometimes.”

Not to the Rays, at least before this season. Now they believe not only that they can win games like this, but that they will. That certainly has not been the case before.

“It’s just big to win that game,” Gross said. “Jackson just pitched his heart out and you don’t want to let pitching performances like that go unrewarded. We needed to win that game.”