BOSTON -- Never mind that the Tampa Bay Rays led the Boston Red Sox two games to one in the American League Championship Series going into the game later last night.

Forget that David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jason Varitek -- a full one-third of the Boston lineup -- don't have a hit among them. Just ignore that the Rays have toppled two of Boston's pitching kingpins in Josh Beckett and Jon Lester to gain the early upper hand.

If history is any guide, the Red Sox have the Rays right where they want them.

"We haven't clinched anything," Rays reliever J.P. Howell said after Tampa Bay put a 9-1 licking on the Red Sox at Fenway Park Monday.

"We know what they did to New York and Cleveland."

Howell would be referring to the 2004 New York Yankees and 2007 Cleveland Indians, who both had the Red Sox by the throat in the ALCS only to see Boston wiggle free and take the best-of-seven series.

The Yankees were up, 3-0; the Indians had a 3-1 series lead.

Two to one?

The Rays haven't ordered the champagne. But they're feeling quite bubbly about their position.

"How many times do we have to prove people wrong, that we can play?" Matt Garza said after pitching the Rays to a Game 3 win that was so decisive the Fenway faithful began vacating their $250 seats early. "We have a chip on our shoulder."

The Red Sox will have everyone believe that the fabled Green Monster plays to their strengths.

Yet it was the Rays who had the most fun with it Monday, pounding and clearing it with one long ball after another.

B.J. Upton, Evan Longoria, Rocco Baldelli and Carlos Pena launched homers over the barrier, and Rays leadoff man Akinori Iwamura smashed a couple of doubles off the thing.

Upton's blast off Lester in the third came with two men aboard, sailed clear out of the ballpark and onto Lansdowne Street, and left the sellout crowd in a stupor.

Lester, after all, was considered a safe bet, almost a sure one.

He had not lost at Fenway since April 9, giving him a streak of 11 consecutive wins there, had not given up an earned run in 22 consecutive postseason innings and -- more significantly -- had faced the Rays three times this season and defeated them every time.

Tampa Bay had scored just two runs off Lester in 20 innings against him.

But that all changed quickly when the Rays scored a run in the second and went up, 5-0, in the third on home runs by Upton and Longoria.

"Very big," Rays manager Joe Maddon said of the home run knocks off Lester. "They're not expecting it to happen and neither are you."

After Tampa Bay lost, 2-0, to the Red Sox in Game 1, Ortiz said the Rays had that deer-in-the-headlights look to them, the look of a playoff newbie.

But they haven't looked star-struck the past two games, clobbering seven home runs and ringing up two scoreboard 9s -- one in Saturday's Game 2 marathon and the other Monday.

And if anyone needs to be concerned, it's Ortiz.

He is now 0 for 9 in the series, 4 for 24 this postseason, and has gone 14 consecutive playoff games without a home run.

He's not the only member of the lineup that does not have a hit against the Rays. Ellsbury is 0 for 14. Varitek is 0 for 10.

That's a big zero out of 33 ALCS at-bats from those three lineup fixtures.

"The fact that nobody has dumped a single in there or scratched out an infield single is pretty fluky," Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey said, knocking on wood as he spoke. "But if those guys aren't hitting, you've got a pretty good chance."

The Red Sox put runners on in every inning but the ninth. But Garza said he was willing to concede hits, just not runs.

Dustin Pedroia doubled off the Green Monster in the first and singled off it in the third. That was perfectly fine with Garza.

"I told myself, let them keep knocking on that door, keep knocking on that wall, but they ain't coming home," Garza said. "Pedroia got two hits off that wall, but he was left standed out there."

The Red Sox scored their only run on a sacrifice fly in the seventh. The Rays kept hammering with Baldelli's three-run homer in the eighth and Pena's solo shot in the ninth.

Red Sox center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who emerged as a rookie star in Boston's 2007 World Series victory but was hitless in the first three games of this year's ALCS, was dropped from the lineup last night against the Rays.

J.D. Drew was moved up in the order to leadoff, and Ellsbury was replaced in center field by Coco Crisp, who lost his job to Ellsbury midway through last year's playoffs. After moving into the lineup, Ellsbury batted .375 in six postseason games.

Ellsbury finished this season with an 18-game hitting streak, and he had six hits in the first three games of the first-round playoff series against the Angels. But he's 0 for 18 since, including 0 for 14 in the ALCS.