BOSTON — On a September night as warm as July, the Boston Red Sox kicked down the doors of October baseball for the first time since 2021, with a come-from-behind walk-off that will not be forgotten any time soon.

But for most of the nearly three-hour game, it seemed champagne and beer showers would have to wait another day.

The Red Sox have asked a lot of their young arms this year, and more often than not, they have delivered. That was not the case for left-hander Kyle Harrison, whose Fenway Friday ended when he allowed five men to reach without recording an out in the fourth inning. Over three innings (plus five batters in the fourth) he yielded three earned runs on seven hits, struck out six, and walked three.

Harrison threw 65 pitches in his first career start against the Tigers. Struggling to find the zone, only 37 were for strikes. He issued two four-pitch walks when loading the bases in the first; Jarren Duran’s leaping catch prevented the Tigers from capitalizing, but he could only prolong the inevitable. The Tigers stranded a two-out single apiece in the second and third.

It took Harrison, Justin Slaten, and Steven Matz nine batters to complete a fourth inning that could have gone even worse than a 3-0 Tigers lead. When Harrison loaded the bases and gave up an RBI single and two-run double, Alex Cora could wait no longer.

Casey Mize, meanwhile, needed only 59 pitches to bulldoze his way the first five innings; 60, after Duran’s first-pitch leadoff groundout in the sixth. The Tigers righty set the Red Sox down in order in the first, third, fifth and sixth. In total, he struck out eight in a walk-less 7 1/3 innings.

After the Tigers took a 3-0 lead in the top of the fourth, it was promising to see the home team answer back immediately. Alex Bregman’s ground-rule double and Masataka Yoshida’s RBI single put a run on the board to begin the bottom of the fourth, but just as quickly as the Red Sox rally began, it ended on a Romy Gonzalez lineout and Ceddanne Rafaela double play.

Yoshida’s leadoff single and Rafaela’s 33rd double finally knocked Mize out of the game in the seventh. Rafaela missed a game-tying two-run homer by mere inches; held by the Monster, it instead put two in scoring position and brought Tigers manager A.J. Hinch out to the mound. Nathaniel Lowe greeted Kyle Finnegan with a sacrifice fly that brought Boston within a run before the Tigers righty reliever could end the seventh.

Garrett Whitlock, the last vestige of the pitching staff from Boston’s most recent playoff run, shifted the energy in the top of the eighth. Dillon Dingler went down swinging. So did Parker Meadows. And, with the sold-out crowd of 37,052 on their feet and hanging on every pitch, so did Javier Báez. The jubilant roars flowed into “Sweet Caroline” like a stream of water.

Back out for the bottom of the eighth, Finnegan attempted to pick up where he’d left off. Instead, the inning unraveled just long enough for the Red Sox to create a brand-new ballgame. Carlos Narváez led off with a single, then walked back to the dugout as Nate Eaton took his place. Eaton didn’t remain on first for long; a stolen base and error by catcher Dingler brought the speedster to third. His sojourn at the hot corner lasted mere seconds. Duran lined a low single through the left side of the infielder, and Eaton raced home.

Tie game.

The Fenway Faithful began to rise as closer Aroldis Chapman worked around a Justyn-Henry Malloy’s pinch-hit leadoff double, and when he punched out Spencer Torkelson, they drowned out their own cheers from the previous inning.

They were still standing moments later when everything finally came together for the Red Sox. It began with Gonzalez’s one-out single to center. It ended with Rafaela’s RBI triple.

But in truth, it was not the end.

This is only the beginning.

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