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Indians score 7 runs in top of 11th, defeat Red Sox

Cleveland put together a big rally in the back-and-forth game, which lasted for more than five hours.

Last update: October 14, 2007 - 2:46 AM

BOSTON - Another postseason game for the ages ended well past midnight in the East, as Saturday night became Sunday morning at Fenway Park.

The Boston Red Sox threw just about everything they had at the Cleveland Indians in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona finally turned to Eric Gagne to start the 11th inning, and Cleveland erupted for seven runs before finishing off a 13-6 victory.

The Indians evened the best-of-seven series at 1-1, with Game 3 scheduled for Monday in Cleveland.

Gagne struck out the first batter he faced but allowed the next two to reach base. Cleveland manager Eric Wedge sent former Red Sox stalwart Trot Nixon to pinch hit, so Francona turned to lefthander Javier Lopez.

Nixon delivered the go-ahead, run-scoring single.

His soft liner to center field scored Grady Sizemore from second base, and Lopez followed with a wild pitch, scoring Asdrubal Cabrera. Ryan Garko added a run-scoring single, before Francona turned to Jon Lester, and the Red Sox added four more runs, three coming on a Franklin Gutierrez home run over the Green Monster.

Saturday's first pitch in Boston came at 8:23 p.m. Eastern. The game ended at 1:37 a.m., for an elapsed time of 5 hours, 14 minutes.

This one came one night after the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks played until 2:45 a.m., Eastern in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, with Colorado finally winning the 4-hour, 26-minute marathon in 11 innings.

Tiring fans might have seen Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez become baseball's all-time postseason home run leader, when he smashed his 23rd during the fifth inning off Cleveland reliever Rafael Perez.

With his third home run of this postseason, Ramirez broke the career record of 22 held by former New York Yankee Bernie Williams.

Both players have benefited from baseball's expanded postseason, of course.

Ramirez has played in 86 postseason games, Williams 121.

Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle are tied for third on the all-time list. Jackson played 77 postseason games. Mantle played 65, all in the World Series.

Saturday's game was billed a potential pitcher's duel between Fausto Carmona and Curt Schilling.

Neither made it through the fifth inning.

Schilling gave up five runs on nine hits in 4 2/3 innings, marking the second shortest of 17 starts in his storied postseason career.

He left trailing 5-3 in the fifth inning, after giving up a three-run homer to Jhonny Peralta in the fourth and a bases-empty shot to Grady Sizemore in the fifth.

Carmona needed 39 pitches to get through the third inning, when Boston scored three runs, and left after giving up a leadoff single to start the fifth.

With a two-run lead, Wedge turned to his top lefthanded reliever, Rafael Perez, to face David Ortiz.

At that point, Ortiz had reached base in 10 consecutive plate appearances, tying a postseason record last set by Billy Hatcher for Cincinnati in 1990.

Perez retired Ortiz, snapping that streak, but didn't get another out. Ramirez followed with a two-run homer that electrified the ballpark.

The Red Sox were trying to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, with Game 3 scheduled for Monday in Cleveland.

With his third home run of this postseason, Ramirez broke the career record of 22 held by former New York Yankee Bernie Williams.

Both players have benefited from baseball's expanded postseason, of course.

Ramirez has played in 86 postseason games, Williams 121.

Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle are tied for third on the all-time list. Jackson played 77 postseason games. Mantle played 65, all in the World Series.

Saturday's game was billed a potential pitcher's duel between Fausto Carmona and Curt Schilling.

Neither made it through the fifth inning.

Schilling gave up five runs on nine hits in 42/3 innings, marking the second shortest of 17 starts in his storied postseason career.

He left trailing 5-3 in the fifth inning, after giving up a three-run homer to Jhonny Peralta in the fourth and a bases-empty shot to Grady Sizemore in the fifth.

Carmona needed 39 pitches to get through the third inning, when Boston scored three runs, and left after giving up a leadoff single to start the fifth.

With a two-run lead, Cleveland manager Eric Wedge turned to his top lefthanded reliever, Rafael Perez, to face David Ortiz.

At that point, Ortiz had reached base in 10 consecutive plate appearances, tying a postseason record last set by Billy Hatcher for Cincinnati in 1990.

Perez retired Ortiz, stopping that streak, but didn't get another out.

Ramirez followed with a two-run homer that electrified the ballpark.

He raised his right hand and pointed to the sky when the ball left his bat, figuring the ball was gone, even though it was traveling toward the mysterious part of Fenway in center field, known locally as The Triangle.

The wall juts back from the Boston bullpen toward a 420-foot sign, and the ball landed just to the right of that wall, inside the bullpen. A few feet to the left, and it would have been in play, with Ramirez in his home run trot.

It was vintage Ramirez --Manny being Manny -- but he's hit enough of these to know.

With the crowd roaring, he gave them a quick curtain call. They were still on their feet when Mike Lowell followed with a homer over the Green Monster, giving the Red Sox back-to-back home runs for the second time this postseason.

Cleveland knotted the score at 6-6 in the sixth inning, when Gutierrez grounded to shortstop off Manny Delcarmen, scoring Peralta from third base.