Boston designated hitter David Ortiz waits to take batting practice. The Red Sox worked out Friday at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., in preparation for tonight's Game 6 of the American League championship series.

Perched on the right-field roof at Fenway Park, Dennis Eckersley could see it all slipping away from the Boston Red Sox.

Heard it, too. No noise, no hope.

“People were just sitting there. I can’t remember it ever being that quiet,” the Hall of Fame pitcher said Friday.

“It’s not like the Rays were scoring runs on groundballs. It was home run after home run after home run. Boom, boom, boom!” the former Red Sox ace and current TBS analyst said over the phone. “It was like, ‘Stop, they’re killing us!'”

And then somehow, suddenly, it all changed Thursday night.

Down by seven runs and only seven outs from elimination, the defending World Series champions rallied to close their deficit in the AL championship series to 3-2.

“Pretty magical,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.

So while Tampa Bay and Boston took a day off, the baseball world tried to figure out exactly how the Red Sox pulled off the biggest postseason comeback since 1929.

Maybe it began with Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon going to his bullpen too quickly. Or Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon coming in early. Might’ve been slugger David Ortiz trying to bunt. Or perhaps Dustin Pedroia fouling off pitch after tough pitch.

Especially amazed were all those people who either turned off their TVs or switched the channel to the “Saturday Night Live” segment and never came back. Millions of ’em.

Here’s what they missed: Trailing, 7-0, with two outs in the seventh inning and a runner on, the Red Sox came back to win, 8-7, on J.D. Drew’s two-out single in the ninth. Pulled in the fifth, Boston pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka was among those who missed seeing the rally. He knew better than to toy with superstition.

“I was in the clubhouse, the reason being I was there throughout the seventh and eighth when we were getting those runs and I could see the momentum shifting toward us,” he said through a translator. “And I couldn’t move from the one spot I was in.”

Sitting with Manny Delcarmen on a locker-room couch, Matsuzaka had a word of advice for the reliever.

“They told me not to move,” Delcarmen said.

Whatever, it worked.

A throwing error by All-Star rookie third baseman Evan Longoria set up the final jolt, Drew’s game-winning drive off J.P Howell that bounced into the Tampa Bay bullpen.

As the ball sailed over right fielder Gabe Gross shortly after midnight and the crowd erupted, Howell trudged to the dugout, hat in hand.

“I can’t think of a better word than deflating,” Gross said during a workout Friday. “You battle and you battle and your teammates battle, and then that moment it’s over. You take it for what it’s worth. You hate it.”