The Red Sox’ David Ortiz, waiting for a pitch during his first at-bat in a rehab start Wednesday night for the Portland Sea Dogs, will be a welcome addition to the Boston lineup.

AP / Joel Page

The Tampa Bay Rays have a nice team.

The Rays have even been in first place or on the doorstep in the American League East for much of the last month, surprisingly looking down on the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees in the standings.

It has been a nice story.

And it may yet play out to be one of the greatest stories in the majors in a long time.

But it’s almost as if Tampa Bay doesn’t count when handicapping the playoff picture because the Rays have to prove to themselves and to the rest of the baseball world that they are for real and can carry their Cinderella story right on through the dog days of August and the stretch run of September.

The A.L. East basically has been all about the Red Sox and the Yankees for the last decade or so, and as the season turns toward its final two months, nothing has changed despite what you see in the standings.

Red Sox and Yankees. Arguably, it’s the hottest rivalry in sports, and yet another round of intense ballgames between the two organizations is on tap for Fenway Park beginning tonight when Boston will play host to New York in the opener of a three-game series.

Each of the teams has had its ups and downs over roughly the first two-thirds of the schedule, suffering through various injuries and slumps.

Yet here we are in late July, the trading deadline only a few days away for movers and shakers such as the Red Sox and Yankees, and both the division title and the league’s wild-card postseason berth are well within their sights.

Both teams also enter this series with a few extra shots of confidence.

On the Red Sox’ side, Boston’s attack will be getting a much-needed boost from the return of slugging designated hitter David Ortiz, who has been out since May 31 because of a partially torn tendon sheath in his left wrist.

Yesterday, the Sox optioned outfielder Brandon Moss to Pawtucket to make room for Ortiz.

The Sox also will thankfully be repeating the mantra spoken by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz — “There’s no place like home.” Boston conquered its road woes by sweeping a three-game series in Seattle after losing three straight in Anaheim after last week’s All-Star break, but now the Red Sox are home, where they boast a sizable home-field-advantage 36-11 record.

The Yankees, meanwhile, have been able to shake off the recent loss of injured star Jorge Posada in bursting out of the post-All-Star-break gate by winning their first six games, a pair of three-game sweeps over Oakland and Minnesota, respectively.

The bottom line is that, while there have been times during the season when it seemed as if the Red Sox had distanced themselves from the Yankees, New York enters Fenway only two games behind Boston in the loss column. The Sox hold a 5-4 series edge over the Yanks with nine games remaining between the rivals, six of which will be at Fenway, including the final three games of the regular season, Sept. 26-28.

So while there still will be two full months left to the season once this renewal of the baseball hostilities have come to a close Sunday night on the ESPN game, the series clearly is an important one for both teams.

And the Red Sox couldn’t have asked for a better time for Big Papi to return.

While Ortiz never really got locked in, batting a mere .252 in 54 games before suffering the injury on a swing in Baltimore, he still was productive. Big Papi had 13 homers and 43 RBI before going down.

His wrist is healthy, having been tested in three rehabilitation games in Pawtucket and then three more in Portland before he and the rest of the Red Sox enjoyed a day off yesterday. Ortiz hit a homer in each of his three games for Pawtucket and didn’t seem to be favoring his wrist at all in cutting loose on his swings.

While no one is expecting him to jump back into the lineup against big-league pitching and simply rake from his first swing back, at the very least Ortiz’s presence makes the Sox’ lineup stronger. In essence, he’ll be replacing Coco Crisp (soft .251) in the lineup, with Manny Ramirez having to drag his tired, sore legs back into the outfield to make room for Ortiz at the DH spot.

While the Sox went 26-19 with Ortiz on the shelf, offensively they can thank J.D. Drew, the Player of the Month for June, for some of that success as he turned in an Ortiz-like performance in Big Papi’s customary three-spot in the order for a while. Drew, though, has batted only .205 (18-for-88) with five homers and 14 RBI over his last 24 games, so it’s a good time to slide him down in the order.

The Sox have been using good pitching to win games because the offense has been held down often in Ortiz’s absence. On the recently concluded West Coast trip, for instance, Boston scored more than three runs in a regulation nine innings only once — four against Seattle last Monday. The Sox did notch a 6-3 win over the Mariners, but that came in 12 innings on Wednesday.

New York also has been relying on tight pitching, particularly out of the bullpen. The Yankees rank only eighth in the league in home runs (97; the Sox are 5th with 113), seventh in runs (474; the Sox are second with 512) and fifth in batting average (.269; the Sox are tops at .280).

Those numbers are uncharacteristically low for the Yanks, but they have lost Hideki Matsui (knee) and Posada (shoulder) for much of the year, and didn’t have Alex Rodriguez or Johnny Damon for stretches.

New York, though, has been winning low-scoring games. Mariano Rivera has been perfect as the closer, 25-for-25 in save opportunities, but it has been his setup corps that has been better than in recent years. Even Kyle Farnsworth has been dazzling. He hasn’t given up a hit over his last 10 outings, dating back to June 22.

And it’s a young power-pitching group. The veteran Farnsworth has notched 41 strikeouts in 43 innings, while the “kids” in the bullpen, Jose Veras (31 in 33 1/3), Edwar Ramirez (43 in 36 1/3), David Robertson (14 in 11 1/3) and Dan Giese (17 in 24 2/3) have been racking up the whiffs in setting up Rivera (54 in 44 2/3).

On July 3, the Red Sox were 3 ½ games out of first. One July 6, the Yanks were 9 games back.

Now, they’re close to each other and near the top of the standings.

The stage is set for another Red Sox-Yankee clash with playoff implications, to the surprise of no one.Tonight

Red Sox vs. Yankees

7:05 p.m.

skrasner@projo.com