Rays doing Monster mash

BOSTON -- Tampa Bay’s 13-4 manhandling of the Boston Red Sox in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday night left Fenway Park’s famed Green Monster begging for mercy and executives at the Fox Network gnashing their teeth.

A Dodgers-Red Sox World Series would be a ratings bonanza for Fox, which would be so amped up about a Manny Ramirez-returns-to-Boston angle it would probably try to rig the Dodgers left fielder with a Manny-cam.

A Tampa Bay-Philadelphia World Series? The on-field action would be compelling, but the story lines aren’t as sexy, the markets aren’t nearly as big, and with limited national interest, it probably wouldn’t be must-see TV.

The Rays don’t care. After crushing three home runs in three innings off knuckleball-throwing veteran Tim Wakefield in another blowout win, giving them a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, they had an emphatic two-word message for television executives who are pining for a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series but may have to settle for Tampa Bay-Philly: Wear it.

Doormats for a decade, winners of no more than 70 games in any of their first 10 seasons, the Rays, like the Phillies in the National League, are one win away from reaching the World Series.

“It’s still hard to say those words right now,” left fielder Carl Crawford said when asked about being one win from the World Series. “It’s one of those things you could never imagine, so those are words you don’t want to say just yet. We’re one step closer, but we’ve still got work to do.”

Crawford did his share Tuesday night, tying an ALCS record with five hits -- two doubles, two singles and a triple -- and driving in two runs. Willy Aybar, the brother of Angels shortstop Erick Aybar, drove in five runs with a homer and three singles.

Carlos Pena drove a two-run homer and Evan Longoria crushed a solo homer over the 37-foot-high left-field wall in the first inning -- it was Longoria’s fifth homer of the playoffs, a rookie record -- and Aybar blasted a two-run shot to left in the third.

The Rays sent 10 men to the plate while peppering the Red Sox for five runs in the sixth inning, and right-hander Andy Sonnanstine gave up four runs and six hits in 7 1/3 innings for Tampa Bay, which outscored Boston, 22-5, in Games 3 and 4 and outhit the Red Sox, 14-7, Tuesday night.

“They’ve been killing the ball,” Red Sox slugger David Ortiz said of the Rays. “Everybody in the lineup is raking, everyone is pretty much locked in. You don’t see that too often in the playoffs.

“You might see three or four guys hot, but everybody? It’s crazy.”

It would be premature to write off the Red Sox, who came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat Cleveland in last year’s ALCS and became the first team to overcome a 3-0 deficit while beating the New York Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

“We don’t want to talk about [the World Series] yet -- we’ve lost seven in a row before, it can happen in the blink of an eye,” Longoria said. “The guys in here understand we can’t ride the high horse too long. It can turn in an instant. We’ve got to keep our minds right.”

The challenge facing the Red Sox seems as daunting as the one in 2004, when they lost the first three games of the ALCS to the Yankees.

The younger Rays look faster, stronger, healthier, and far more athletic than the Red Sox, who lost third baseman Mike Lowell to a hip injury and have lost the postseason swagger they displayed while winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007 and beating the Angels in the division series this month.

Boston does have this going for it, though: Of the previous 15 teams that fell behind, 3-1, in the ALCS, only three have come back to win the series, the Red Sox in 2007, 2004 and 1986 against the Angels.

“We have experience coming back, so I guess you can have some kind of feel for what you’re supposed to do in these situations,” Boston center fielder Coco Crisp said. “But at the same time, that was last year, and we’re not playing Cleveland.”

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mike.digiovanna@latimes.com