BOSTON - Put the Red Sox elimination on hold.

At least for another game.

Keep this season alive.

At least for another game.

Down 7-0 in the seventh inning, and looking as gone as summer, the Red Sox had one of those comebacks for the ages last night, somehow managing to stay alive when the hearse was coming for their season.

Do you believe in miracles?

Maybe we should.

We saw one in 2004, when the Sox came back from being down three games to zero to beat the Yankees, and we saw another one last year, when they came back from down 3-1 against the Indians.

Last night we saw the possibility of another one.

At least for another game.

For the Sox are somehow still alive, after an amazing comeback, one that almost had to be seen to be believed. Still alive on a night when they were all but over and out. Still alive when everyone had the Rays in the World Series against the Phillies.

Until Dustin Pedroia singled in the first run.

Until Big Papi hit a gigantic three-run home run to make it 7-4, the same Big Papi who was beginning to be booed for his struggles at the plate.

Until J.D. Drew hit another home run to right field in the eighth to make it 7-6.

Until Coco Crisp singled in another run in the eighth.

Until it was tied 7-7, and the Sox finally had gotten to the top of the mountain, the one that had seemed so impossible to reach all night long.

Until Drew came through again, the often-maligned J.D. Drew, and Fenway Park once again became a love fest to this team that keeps moving forward, even though for the longest time it seemed as if the obit had already been written.

Until this series started to look like last year's ALCS against the Indians. Until we could all start to dream again.

Once again the Sox fell behind early, as if last night was merely a continuation of Games 3 and 4. They were down 2-0 after the second batter of the game, after B.J Upton once again hit one over the Green Monster. Two innings later, two more Rays home runs had the Sox down 5-0 and the team looked as flat as yesterday's pancakes.

Hadn't we seen this all before?

Hadn't this been the script in Games 3 and 4?

Wasn't this déjà vu all over again?

Because after six innings last night, this Red Sox season was all but over. The Sox had given up an astounding 38 runs in the past four games, and seemed all about the past to the Rays' future. They looked beaten, ground down by Scott Kazmir and by the long-ball power of Tampa Bay. They were about to lose their third straight playoff game in Fenway Park, this place that's been their dream palace for the past four years now, and all that seemed left was the tears and regret.

Then came the miracle finish, as if it stepped off the screen of some Hollywood movie, the kind you leave the theater shaking your head because it defied belief.

Until everything changed.

"We were down 7-0, but there was a lot of fight in that dugout,'' Drew said.

You wouldn't have known it by the crowd. It seemed almost funereal, as if they had seen the future and it was the Rays and the Phillies in the World Series, and they could begin to start counting the days until spring training.

But baseball is a game of momentum, and last night we saw it dramatically change. Pedroia's hit in the seventh that broke the ice, Ortiz's huge three-run blast that got the crowd back in the game and gave his team hope, the great at-bat by Crisp in the eighth inning, where he battled through nine pitches, before his base hit tied the game.

By then the Rays' bullpen had completely imploded, and the momentum was all but sitting in the Sox' dugout.

"Our biggest strength all season has been our bullpen,'' Joe Maddon, the Rays manager, said. "But it's what it is. I don't dwell on it. I thought we played a good game. They just came back and beat us. That happens sometimes. You can't dwell on it."

Maddon knows.

He knows that it's only one game, and that he and his Rays still lead 3-2 and are now going back to the dome in Florida, where they play very well. He also knows that momentum in baseball is only as good as your starting pitcher, and that Saturday night this all starts again.

No doubt.

But last night's amazing comeback not only keeps the Sox alive, it also resurrects the memory of last year, a reminder that the old cliché is true: It's never over until it's over. Last night the Sox gave us another reminder, a comeback for the ages, one that had to be seen to be believed.

Do you believe in miracles?

Maybe we should.

For we saw a baseball miracle last night.

One that keeps this Red Sox season alive.

At least for another game.