BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox brushed aside the 100-win Angels in four games, dismissing their best-in-baseball regular season as last month's news.

When it turns to October, no one dominates like Boston.

Jason Bay slid headfirst into home plate to score on Jed Lowrie's two-out single in the ninth inning today as the defending World Series champions beat Los Angeles 3-2 in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series and advanced to play for the AL pennant for the fourth time in six seasons.

The Red Sox, who also won it all in 2004, will have a chance at a third title in five years if they can get past the Rays in the best-of-seven AL championship series that starts at Tampa Bay on Friday night. Boston is 31-16 in October since the turn of the century, and both World Series runs began with a playoff sweep of the Angels.

Los Angeles was able to force the series to a fourth game with an extra-inning victory Sunday night that snapped an 11-game playoff losing streak against Boston.

As it turned out, that gave them less than an 24 extra hours.

Jon Lester held the Angels to four hits in seven shutout innings but lost his chance at a second victory in the series when Los Angeles scored twice in the eighth to tie it 2-all. The Angels had a chance to go ahead in the ninth before Erick Aybar, whose 12th-inning single was the winner in Game 3, missed on a suicide squeeze attempt, thwarting the threat.

In the bottom half, Bay lofted a fly ball down the right-field line that Reggie Willits pursued and dove for before it one-hopped into the stands for a ground-rule double. First baseman Mark Teixeira made a diving catch of Mark Kotsay's line drive for the second out before Lowrie grounded a single to right.

Bay raced around third and slid headfirst into home while his teammates poured out of the dugout to celebrate.