It was easy to celebrate this very uneasy season

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Most of the celebration in the visitors' clubhouse at Tropicana Field early Sunday evening was what we have come to expect.

Yes, it came almost an hour after the Red Sox's game - a 5-1 loss to the Rays - ended.

Yes, it involved some intricacies such as a garden hose, Prosecco wine instead of champagne, and a failed attempt by some of the players to include the pool housing the stingrays in center field in the festivities.

Yes, a few unique words were uttered, such as Payton Tolle's description of the celebration: "There was a lot of beer!" Adding, "It was a slobberknocker."

And, yes, there were the omnipresent sounds of the Bee Gees' classic, "Stayin' Alive" on a loop in the midst of the hoopin' and hollerin'.

But, overall, in the words of former Red Sox pitcher Josh Winckowski, when it came to executing the celebration of making the postseason, much of the jubilation was "stock standard." Not bad. Not unwarranted. Just pretty much how one would expect a baseball team to celebrate such an accomplishment.

With one exception.

For that, they could thank Willson Contreras.

Contreras' unique contribution wasn't what many might immediately point to: an impromptu speech to the entire team that briefly paused the party. While you might not typically see such a missive delivered so deep into the event, the words relayed were about what one would expect from the undeniable leader of a recently minted playoff team:

“I’m going to start all the way back to Spring Training when I got here. When we started to grind in March back in Spring Training, everybody was working their ass off, and I’m really part of this (expletive) group. ... New staff, same energy. Same grinding staff. We created a family here, good chemistry throughout the season. We just needed time. And the time came for us. And the most important thing to me is that everybody never stopped working. Everyone was finding their way to make an adjustment and play their game the right way. This is what we play for. This is what we’re going for. This is just the first step ahead to get to the postseason. I just wanted everyone to know that I’m proud of every one of you. It’s a long season. We played through injuries, we played through a staff change, but we never stopped believing, and that’s why we’re here."

The words were appreciated and truly received by those drenched members of the Red Sox. But it was five minutes of Contreras about 15 minutes prior to the big speech that offered the signature for the hour or so before the 7 p.m. bus took off for the airport. That was when the first baseman conducted an interview while running through a gauntlet of alcohol showers. He could have easily stopped about five different times, but he kept powering through, making sure this club's story and message were relayed.

It was anything but a typical interview in the first punctuation of an anything-but-typical Major League Baseball season.

Contreras powered through, just like his team had for the past three months.

"I did believe in my team. I did believe in everybody who was here," Contreras said. "I never had a doubt that this team would get to the position we are in. At one point I texted the team, and I just said, ‘Keep believing in ourselves.’ ... I said believe. That was our main word. And that’s what we believed from Day 1."

"Believe."

The word and the message on their own aren't unique. Ever since Jason Sudeikis' character "Ted Lasso" put up the verb as a sign in the popular TV series, the verb has experienced a rebirth. But the execution of it? It would be hard to find a group that did a better job of it than these Red Sox.

Believing is easy when you're spraying "La Marca" with a 100 percent chance of playing in the postseason. Doing it on June 24, when the odds of accomplishing such a thing are sitting at 9.4 percent, is another.

"At the beginning, we had a long way to go," said Red Sox manager Chad Tracy, who, a year ago, was simply celebrating some family time after finishing his season as manager of the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox. "It's like, how do we get on track and get things moving in the right direction? When the end of June hit, and things started to go, and we started to see things come together, it became very much on our mind. So I'm just really happy for our guys and our players to be able to get it done."

He added, "That they stared at almost an impossible path right in their face, and they're very battle-tested, and it makes me super proud of this group."

"Impossible."

"Believe."

"A lot of beer."

Just more than a month ago, the Red Sox deserved to soak in that 27-3 run which helped them crawl out of that early-season crater. And even though it was simply about getting the opportunity to play in the wild-card round next week, this achievement deserved a few moments of cigar smoking and Budweiser showers.

Maybe there will be more of these in the coming weeks. Maybe not. But because of how utterly Wikipedia-worthy this half-year ride has been, this scene was warranted and well deserved.