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.
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