BOSTON — Exhale, Red Sox fans. You and your favorite baseball team get your couple of days to rest and recover.

The Red Sox kicked the Angels back to Anaheim Monday night. So it took one more game than usual. So what.

Jon Lester picked up Josh Beckett's burden, Dustin Pedroia got his stroke back, and Mark Kotsay played first base like, well, Kevin Youkilis.

Jed Lowrie drove in Jason Bay with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, and, yes, it is a brave new world without Manny Ramirez's bat for a safety net.

The Red Sox beat the Angels, 3-2. Boston has a date with the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series. Baseball's new establishment takes on the newer Young and the Restless.

That's anticipation for another day. Monday night, the celebration on the field, in the stands and in the clubhouse went on and on. What happened in the decades before 2004 hasn't really been forgotten. Winning should never get old.

No one but the Angels wanted to go back to L.A. for Game 5, though the Red Sox had a reasonable fallback plan if they hadn't closed out the series Monday. Hand the baseball to Daisuke Matsuzaka, pat him on his back and point him to the mound. Seal the deal, champ. It's your day in the sun.

So why did Red Sox fans feel so chilled before Lowrie delivered the last run?

"Thanksgiving's around the corner and we need to win games," Manager Terry Francona said before Monday's game. Nice quote, but Francona knew how battered and gassed his team really is. Mike Lowell, one of last year's World Series heroes, is done with an aching hip that barely enables him to pull on his pants, let alone lunge for a hard-hit ball or swing at a 90 mph fastball.

The bullpen did some heavy lifting in Games 2, 3, and 4. Yes, players expect to work more in the playoffs, but sometimes there's not much left to give.

Before Game 4 there was a feeling of desperation in the air. In both dugouts. Up was down and winners had become losers. Games 3 and 4 hung on a heartbeat. The Angels took one game at Fenway, but not both. When it came time to do the things that win ballgames Monday night, the Angels couldn't.

The numbers say the Angels were the best team in baseball during the regular season, a very good small-ball team that could score runs with execution and speed and taking advantage of opportunities. But Monday night, Erick Aybar couldn't square his bat and make contact with a Manny Delcarman pitch on a suicide squeeze in the top of the ninth. If you can't get the ball down on the bunt, at least foul it off.

Aybar did neither.

"It was a buntable ball," said Angels Manager Mike Scioscia. "Erick just didn't get it done."

With the ball in Jason Varitek's possession instead of on the ground, pinch-runner Reggie Willits was hung out to dry. Varitek ran down Willits for the out before the ball popped out of his mitt after he hit the ground. Bad break for the Angels.

Willits stays in the game in right field and dives for Jason Bay's sinking line drive.

From Scioscia's angle, the ball was impossible to play. Dive or don't dive, Willits had no chance. The ball hit the ground and jumped about 30 feet into the stands.

Bad break for the Angels. Good break for the Red Sox.

Hey, you can celebrate your escape from misfortune just as you celebrate success.

"The Red Sox jumped up and beat us," said Scoiscia. "They did what they had to do to win."

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com