We are so close, I can taste it, but at the same time, I know it’s way too early to celebrate. Sorry for the cliche, but I don’t want to jinx. If we come out tomorrow and play our game, we can win.

Then we will be WORLD CHAMPIONS. That will be unbelievable. This is definitely an exciting time, but it still seems like we’re a long way from getting there. I know we’re in the driver’s seat, and we put ourselves in a good position with our ace on the mound Monday. We have to keep our foot on the pedal. We have to try and finish the team off.

This has been such a great ride, but we need to finish this and bring a championship home.

I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in this city, if we can do it. Driving home on Broad Street after Saturday’s win, I could see the excitement already, and we had just won one game. The closer we get, the more exciting it gets. We hope to share this with you guys tomorrow.

You deserve it to. Being from Hawaii, I never really understood what the passion of this city was like, in terms of its sports teams. I get it now. I know I’m not going to get much sleep tonight.

Seriously, wow. Did that really happen? People were going nuts in the stands, so I guess we really did win that game.

If we end up winning the World Series, this is going to be the game that stands out. We got the lead, lost it and ended up winning. Wild.

I’m really tired, as you can imagine, so I don’t have much to say. None of us realized how late it was until we got in the clubhouse and looked at the clock. It’s funny how you feel fine during the game — adrenaline I guess — and then all of a sudden, you feel it.

It doesn’t matter though. WE WON and we’re going to enjoy it. We have to play again tomorrow, or later today.

It is great to be back in Philadelphia. I hope everyone has their white towels unpacked and ready to go. We’re ready to go. It seems like it’s been a while since we played a game at Citizens Bank Park.

You guys are going to get loud and we’ll appreciate every cheer you make. It was pretty loud in St. Pete, but you guys can do a lot better than that. I’m sure you realize how big a part you can play in this.

At one game apiece, we feel that we have home-field advantage. We have to win three more games, and we’d love to sweep here and celebrate with you.

We’re really looking forward to it.

We definitely wanted to win two here, but we got a split, so we came up short in the end. I’m sure you guys will be excited for this weekend. We’ll take a day off, work out and be ready for Saturday.

Because we didn’t get the job done with runners in scoring position, maybe it seems like you’re pressing. I know I’m not. I’m sure a lot of guys in here aren’t. Heck, I popped out with two guys on and no one out, and swung at the first pitch. I was trying to get a hit. I’m aggressive. I’m always going to be aggressive.

It’s not about making excuses. We’re just not doing it. They scored early by executing. Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria grounded out and two runs scored. We didn’t do that.

Still, we got ourself in a situation to tie the game with one swing, and that’s without executing. We have to look at the positives. We won one game without executing and lost one game without executing. If we do the little things, we’d be alright. We have to keep playing. We’ll show up and get ready to go in Game 3.

After a week off, we finally played a baseball game, and it went great. We’ll take it. That was big. I don’t care if it’s Game 1 or Game 7, you have to find a way to win.

We struggled with execution tonight. The writers told me that we went something like 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position, but we got it done. That was because of Cole. He was fantastic. He’s done it the whole playoffs.

The key tonight was that we went out there and played the same. We showed up and were ourselves, and just tried to play the game. Chase hitting that home run dampened the crowd. He obviously wasn’t affected by the layoff. It doesn’t matter if he has a week off, a day off or no days off. He’s the best at his position for a reason.

A lot of people picked the Rays, and that may work in our favor. We like being the underdogs. It seems like we play our best when our backs are against the wall. Coming into a place like this — Tampa is so good at home — being able to take Game 1 is big. Boston took Game 1, too. It’s still a long series. We’re far from done. We’ll show up tomorrow and try and get Game 2.

Oh, and on my trying to score on that shallow fly ball. That was a  miscommunication between Steve Smith and myself. I heard, ‘go.’ He said, ‘No.’ B.J. Upton made a great play and has got a great arm. I don’t know why I tried to test him there. But we got the win, and that’s all it’s about. We were able to overcome some things tonight and pull out a win.

We’ll take it.