ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Rays should have snuffed out the Boston Red Sox when they had the chance.
They let them up for air in Game 5, their failure to hold a seven-run, seventh-inning lead preventing them from clinching a World Series berth, and now they're the team that is reeling, gasping for breath in the American League Championship Series.
The Red Sox followed their miracle Game 5 comeback with a methodical dismantling of the Rays in Game 6 on Saturday night, their 4-2 victory in Tropicana Field tying the best-of-seven series at three games apiece.
Boston left-hander Jon Lester will oppose right-hander Matt Garza in a winner-take-all game tonight, as the Red Sox try to complete their third ALCS resurrection in five years.
Trailing, 3-0, in the 2004 ALCS, Boston stormed back to win four games in a row against the New York Yankees. Trailing, 3-1, in the 2007 ALCS, the Red Sox won three games in a row to beat Cleveland.
"It's not easy," slugger David Ortiz said. "It's not like we like being in this situation, but it seems like that's how our destiny has been. We've been there before. We know what it takes to win the game."
The Red Sox didn't do anything spectacular Saturday. They got a solid start from Josh Beckett, who gave up two runs and four hits in five innings, and four hitless innings from three relievers.
They got some clutch hits, none bigger than Jason Varitek's home run that broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning, and made all the plays on defense.
The Rays, meanwhile, look like a shell of the team that a few days ago seemed poised to roll over the Red Sox.
Starting pitcher James "Big Game" Shields came up medium, giving up four runs -- three earned -- and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings, including Varitek's home run, which ended the catcher's skid at 0 for 15.
The heavy lumber that produced 38 runs and 47 hits, 13 of them home runs, in the previous four ALCS games looked more like balsa wood Saturday, the Rays managing four hits.
And the Rays' usual air-tight defense sprung a leak for the second consecutive game, shortstop Jason Bartlett's throwing error on Dustin Pedroia's routine grounder extending the sixth inning and giving Ortiz a chance to hit. His two-out run-scoring single made it 4-2.
"My feet got lazy," Bartlett said. "I thought I had it pretty easy and I let it sail. I pride myself on defense, and that's going to eat at me tonight."
