NEW YORK — It came to this: A tumultuous 243 days after they began to gather for spring training, the Red Sox Wednesday night had a chance to change history.

Placing their faith in Derek Lowe, whose days in Boston almost certainly are numbered after the season, the Sox were trying to complete the greatest comeback in the annals of professional baseball. All they needed was one more victory over the Yankees to become the first team in the sport's history to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games.

And the Sox delivered, clinching their 11th American League pennant — and first since 1986 — by surging to an 8-1 lead through four innings on three home runs, a two-run shot by David Ortiz off Kevin Brown in the first inning, a grand slam by Johnny Damon off Javier Vazquez in the second, and a two-run job by Damon off Vazquez in the fourth, en route to a 10-3 victory over the stunned Yankees.

The Sox advanced to the 100th World Series, which opens Saturday at Fenway Park against the survivor of a do-or-die Game 7 Thursday night between the Astros and Cardinals in the National League Championship Series.

The Sox, who staved off elimination three straight nights while champagne chilled in the Yankee clubhouse, beat the Pinstripers for a fourth time in four days for the first time since June 4-7, 1990, when Lowe was in high school.

Lowe, pitching on two days' rest after he helped to fuel the amazing comeback effort by starting the Game 4 victory, allowed the Yankees only one run on a single and a walk through six innings before giving way to Pedro Martinez, who allowed a pair of runs in the seventh. Mike Timlin pitched a perfect eighth, got two outs in the ninth, and Alan Embree retired pinch hitter Ruben Sierra on a grounder to second to end it.

But Damon's reversal of fortune may have been even more startling than Lowe's. He entered the game batting .103 with one RBI in the first six games of the series. But nearly four months after he took Vazquez deep twice in a game in the Bronx June 29, he struck again for a pair of big home runs when the Sox needed them most.

The Yankees, who were 0-12 in postseason series after losing three straight games, pulled out all the stops to try to halt their skid, even enlisting Bucky "Bleeping" Dent to toss a ceremonial first pitch in their rematch of last year's memorable seven-game showdown between the archrivals. It didn't work. The Sox became the first of 26 teams in postseason history to prevail in a seven-game series after trailing, 3-0.