Aybar's Single in 12th Lifts Angels Past Red Sox

Angels 5, Red Sox 4

BOSTON, Oct. 5 -- On a chilly night at Fenway Park when a restless home crowd expected the affair to play out as some sort of formality, nothing seemed quite right. The Boston Red Sox, the American League wild card, held a 2-0 series lead on the Los Angeles Angels, the only team in the majors to have won 100 games in the regular season. But that was merely the most obvious clue.

Rather, Red Sox shortstop Jed Lowrie officially declared Game 3 of this division series a starkly unusual narrative when he popped out to right field with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning. No mystical Boston postseason heroics? Something truly was afoul.

In the top of the 12th, Angels shortstop Erick Aybar lined a single to center off Javier Lopez that scored Mike Napoli from second base. Los Angeles pitcher Jered Weaver, making the first relief appearance of his career, recorded the final three outs of a game that lasted 5 hours 19 minutes.

The Angels won, 5-4, to extend this series, and their season, one more day. Though Manager Mike Scioscia correctly predicted before the game that his team would not be eliminated that night, the victory was far from preconceived.

Boston's postseason ace, Josh Beckett, labored through five innings of inconsistent effort. Gold Glove third baseman Mike Lowell toiled to make accurate throws. Game 2 hero J.D. Drew was out of the starting lineup with a sore back.

Los Angeles -- a team Scioscia said before the game was not built to survive off home runs -- proceeded to survive off home runs. The Angels also made a critical and uncharacteristic fielding blunder.

Napoli tied the game and later provided the Angels a brief lead with a pair of home runs. The Angels had gone 68 postseason innings without a home run prior to Napoli's two-run shot in the third. Napoli, who batted seventh in the Angels' lineup, poked another Beckett offering over the Green Monster two innings later.

"Hopefully, about a month from now we'll talk about that 3-2 breaking ball that [Napoli] hit off one of the toughest pitchers ever in a playoff environment. That was big," Scioscia said.

In addition to Napoli's two blasts, Beckett allowed four walks on the night. He had not handed out more than two free passes in an outing since May 30. Beckett struggled especially in the first, when his performance necessitated three visits to the mound by catcher Jason Varitek and his pitch count rose to 30.

Whether Beckett would even make this start was in question prior to two days before the game. A strained oblique prohibited Beckett from starting Game 1, and only after a successful extended bullpen session Thursday did Manager Terry Francona give the right-hander the go-ahead.

Without his top stuff, Beckett lasted just five innings, the shortest postseason start of his career. He allowed nine hits -- also a career postseason high -- and four earned runs.

On the other hand, Angels promising youngster Joe Saunders (West Springfield) knew since the postseason began that he would take the mound on Sunday night. After the Angels dropped both decisions in Anaheim, Saunders's task grew more crucial, but his 17-7 regular season record and accompanying all-star selection suggested he was up for the challenge.