Red Sox beat Tigers 5-2 to advance to World Series

Boston Red Sox's Shane Victorino, second from right, celebrates his grand slam with Jonny Gomes, left, Xander Bogaerts, second from left, and Jacoby Ellsbury, right, in the seventh inning during Game 6 of the American League baseball championship series against the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Boston Red Sox's Shane Victorino, second from right, celebrates his grand slam with Jonny Gomes, left, Xander Bogaerts, second from left, and Jacoby Ellsbury, right, in the seventh inning during Game 6 of the American League baseball championship series against the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.

BOSTON — Bedlam at Fenway Park. Heartbreak in the Motor City.

With another city-trembling grand slam at their expense, the Tigers are headed home for the winter after falling 5-2 to the Red Sox in Game 6 of the AL championship series Saturday night.

Boston’s Shane Victorino hit a grand slam over the Green Monster off reliever Jose Veras with one out in the seventh inning that turned a one-run Tigers lead into the punctuation mark on the Red Sox’s last-place-to-the-pennant transformation.

The Red Sox are heading to the World Series for the first time since 2007.

After Cy Young favorite Max Scherzer defied trouble all night, the Tigers’ fortune finally turned bad in the seventh.

Scherzer allowed a leadoff double to Jonny Gomes and a disputed one-out walk to Xander Bogaerts — the low-and-outside full-count pitch appeared a borderline strike — that ended his night at 110 pitches. He then retreated to the Tigers’ dugout to watch a season that began with World Series expectations crash to its conclusion.

With runners on first and second, shortstop Jose Iglesias — the one player on the Tigers known specifically for his defense — mishandled a potential double-play grounder behind the second-base bag to load the bases with one out. Victorino followed with the grand slam on an 0-2 curveball by Veras.

It was the second late-innings series-shifting grand slam — David Ortiz delivered his game-tying backbreaker in Game 2 — and the latest classic moment in a series filled with them.