Boston’s 8-7 come-from-behind win Thursday night was almost a typical postseason performance by the Red Sox. It’s not every day that a team overcomes a 7-0 deficit over the final three innings, but the defending World Series champions did manage to win their eighth straight elimination game in ALCS play with their unlikely comeback.

After the Rays went up 7-0 with two runs in the top of the seventh inning, Game 5 finally offered some drama as the sputtering Red Sox attack came alive.

Boston’s Coco Crisp delivered the game-tying hit in the eighth after a lengthy at-bat facing Rays closer Dan Wheeler. With two outs in the ninth, Rays third baseman Evan Longoria committed a throwing error to allow the potential winning run to move into scoring position, and then J.D. Drew provided the game-winning hit, an inning after he pulled the Red Sox to within a run with a two-run homer.

Still, the whole game hinged on a poor decision two innings earlier by Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon. To start the bottom of the seventh, reliever Grant Balfour took over for Rays starter Scott Kazmir and struggled to locate his pitches. After serving up back-to-back two-out singles to Crisp and Dustin Pedroia to make it a 7-1 game, David Ortiz stepped to the plate.

With Balfour failing to hit his spots, the decision was a no-brainer. Get southpaw J.P. Howell -- or almost anyone -- out of the bullpen. Visions of Ortiz turning around a mid-90s fastball danced in this writer’s head, and the inevitable seemed certain when FOX featured a graphic that noted Ortiz hadn’t homered in 61 straight postseason at-bats. It didn’t take much imagination to visualize a mistake pitch from Balfour leaving Fenway Park.

Sure enough, Ortiz turned on a Balfour offering and moved the Red Sox to within three runs with seven outs to go. The Rays bullpen, which had allowed just four runs and posted a 1.46 ERA in eight playoff contests going into Game 5, coughed up a total of eight runs in 2.2 innings. The Red Sox, who had been limited to 15 runs in the first four games of the ALCS, found a way to put eight on the board in the final three innings.

Does this mark the beginning of the end for the surprising Rays?

You can’t count out the Red Sox. Six teams have recovered from a three-games-to-one deficit to advance to the World Series since the LCS became a best-of-seven affair in 1985, and the Red Sox have done it most recently -- in both 2004 and 2007. Both times they went on to sweep their World Series opponent.

After securing the biggest postseason comeback since the 1929 World Series, when the Philadelphia Athletics overcame an 8-0 hole with a 10-run seventh inning to beat the Cubs, the Red Sox appear more than capable of winning two in a row at Tropicana Field.