ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The Battle of the Aces never took hold Saturday night at Tropicana Field.

Boston's Josh Beckett and Tampa Bay's Scott Kazmir are deserving of their ranking as two of the premier pitchers in baseball, but neither brought their best stuff to Game Two of the ALCS. The two pitchers combined to give up 13 runs, 15 hits and six home runs. Both lasted just 4 1/3 innings.

The bullpens took over from there and the Rays outlasted the Sox in 11 innings, 9-8, to even the series at one game apiece.

The outing was the shortest of Beckett's postseason career. That it came on the heels of a very shaky start in the ALDS against Los Angeles of Anaheim, when he lasted five innings and gave up four runs on nine hits, has to be cause for major concern in the Red Sox camp.

"I'm fine," Beckett said as he packed for an early-morning flight home. "It's very frustrating when you get eight runs in the game [and can't win]. That's the frustrating thing.''

Beckett has not been able to push his fastball into the 95-mile-per-hour range for the last two weeks. He dismissed that issue and instead blamed poor location for the Rays' success.

"He made some mistakes and he paid for them," said manager Terry Francona. "He paid for all of them.''

Kazmir wasn't any better. He threw 38 pitches to seven Red Sox hitters in a sluggish first inning, repeating his first playoff outing when he tossed 37 pitches in the first inning in Game Two against the White Sox. Boston scored twice in the frame with Jason Bay doubling in David Ortiz (who had walked) and Kevin Youkilis (a single). Kazmir settled down in the second inning but continually missed with his sneaky fastball and breaking pitches.

Dustin Pedroia, who entered the game with a .560 (14-for-25) career average against Kazmir, led off the third inning with a home run that gave the Red Sox a 3-2 lead. By the end of the fourth inning the Rays led 5-3 but Kazmir had already thrown 87 pitches. He was knocked out of the game in the top of the fifth when Pedroia ripped his second solo home run into the left field seats and Youkilis followed with his own solo blast two batters later. That home run tied the score, 5-5.

Jason Bay greeted reliever Grant Balfour with a rocket-shot home run to left to give the Sox a 6-5 lead, but Beckett couldn't hold it. His fastball clearly wasn't locating well all night, as evidenced by a first-inning homer by Evan Longoria, a third-inning bomb off the bat of B.J. Upton and a fourth-inning solo homer by Cliff Floyd that gave the Rays a 5-3 lead.

Francona said he hoped a 6-5 lead would somehow settle Beckett down in the fifth and allow him to set up his bullpen for the rest of the game. Not removing Beckett backfired, as Upton walked and stole second. Carlos Pena singled him in to tie the game at 6-6, then Longoria ripped a 3-and-1 pitch into the left-field corner that scored Pena with the go-ahead run. That proved to be Beckett's final pitch.

"We scored three in the fifth (to go up 6-5) and wanted to give ourselves a realistic chance at having some semblence of order in our bullpen,'' said Francona. "We wanted Beckett to get through that fifth and set up our bullpen but it didn't work.''

Beckett has yielded five home runs in his two postseason starts. In his previous nine playoff starts, he had allowed only four bombs. He's given up 12 earned runs in the two games after limiting opponents to 14 earned runs in his playoff career.

Beckett and Kazmir are set to match up again if the series lasts until the sixth game. They'll both hope to pitch much better.