BOSTON -- Coco Crisp saw fans heading for the exits in Fenway Park on Thursday night with the home team trailing by seven runs in the seventh inning, and the Boston Red Sox center fielder couldn't really blame them.
"I guess down seven in the seventh, most of the time you don't come back from that," Crisp said. "I know they're home kicking themselves in the butt, like, 'Gosh, I just left an instant classic.' The fans that stayed are out here partying, cheering."
And the Red Sox? They're simply breathing, remarkably alive in the American League Championship Series after rallying against one of baseball's best bullpens for the second-greatest comeback in postseason history, a stunning, 8-7 Game 5 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Crisp capped a 10-pitch at-bat with a two-out, run-scoring single to tie it, 7-7, in the eighth, and J.D. Drew, whose two-run homer in the eighth pulled Boston to within 7-6, drove a two-out RBI single over right fielder Gabe Gross' head in the ninth to give the Red Sox their 11th walk-off win in the postseason.
It marked Boston's eighth straight win when facing LCS elimination and sent the series back to Tampa Bay for Game 6 with the Rays leading, three games to two, still one win away from their first World Series berth.
"I've never seen a group so happy to get on a plane at 1:30 in the morning in my life," Red Sox Manager Terry Francona said. "The first six innings, we did nothing. They had their way with us. And then this place came unglued. That was pretty magical."
For the Rays, it could be devastating, especially for Manager Joe Maddon, whose late-game pitching decisions will be dissected and criticized as much as Angels Manager Mike Scioscia's decision to attempt a suicide squeeze in the division series.
Starter Scott Kazmir blanked the Red Sox on two hits over six innings, and the Rays appeared on their way to another lopsided win when B.J. Upton hit a two-run homer in the first, Carlos Pena (two-run) and Evan Longoria (solo) homered in the third, and Upton hit a two-run double in the seventh.
Maddon pulled Kazmir, who threw 111 pitches, after six innings, and right-hander Grant Balfour gave up a leadoff double to Jed Lowrie in the seventh. Two outs later, Crisp singled, putting runners on first and third, and Dustin Pedroia singled to make it 7-1.
