ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Anaheim Angels performed a miracle last night at Edison Field.

They brought their season back to life.

Trailing by five runs, down to their final eight outs and, quite frankly, looking down in the mouth, the Angels rallied for a 6-5 victory over the San Francisco Giants to force a Game 7 tonight in this wildly entertaining Wild-Card World Series.

It was the biggest comeback ever by a team facing World Series elimination.

Righthander Livan Hernandez will start the deciding game for the Giants, and rookie righthander John Lackey will go to the mound on three days' rest for the Angels.

You'd better believe that the Rally Monkey will be there.

Whether the monkey is magic or myth remains open for debate. All that's known for sure is that when the little fellow started making scoreboard appearances in his doctored movie clips last night, the Angels' offense went from lifeless to unstoppable.

"I've said all along that these games are so long and draining," Angels first baseman Scott Spiezio said. "It really helped that the fans were so into it. They never gave up, and we never gave up. If it takes the Rally Monkey to get them going a little bit more, we love him."

The Angels' rally magic started with a three-run home run by Spiezio in the bottom of the seventh inning and was capped by a game-winning two-run double by Troy Glaus off Giants closer Robb Nen in the bottom of the eighth.

"It was a great ball game," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "I think we have two teams here with a passion to strive for something, and when you have two teams like that, there are always special things that can happen. Tonight was one of them."

Scioscia, a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers' 1988 World Series championship team, said the Angels' rally last night may go down in baseball history as being even more special than Kirk Gibson's limp around the bases after his game-winning home run off Oakland's Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 Series.

After six innings, the Angels had just two hits and had gotten just four baserunners against Giants righthander Russ Ortiz, who rebounded from an awful performance in Game 2 and delivered 61/3 strong innings.

But when Glaus and Brad Fullmer delivered consecutive singles with one out in the bottom of the seventh, Giants manager Dusty Baker went with a quick hook and called in Felix Rodriguez.

Up stepped Spiezio, who produced one of the classic at-bats in World Series history, an eight-pitch encounter with Rodriguez that ended with a fly ball that barely cleared the short wall in right field.

"I was praying, 'God, please,' " Spiezio said. "It seemed like it took forever to get over the fence."

The homer was Spiezio's first of the World Series, but it gave him a record for RBIs in a postseason of 19, breaking the mark established by Cleveland's Sandy Alomar Jr. in 1997.

Far more important, it gave the Angels hope and sent the already fired-up crowd of 44,506 into a frenzy.

Now Spiezio and the Angels will play in Game 7 tonight. Spiezio used to pretend that he was doing exactly that in his backyard in Illinois with his father, Ed, a major-league reserve who won a World Series with St. Louis in 1967.

"He tried to put me in the toughest situation so any other situation didn't seem as tough," Spiezio said when asked about those fantasy games. "Tonight it's going to be for real."

Reliever Brendan Donnelly followed Spiezio's big hit with the biggest scoreless inning of his life in the top of the eighth, and the Angels went back to work in the bottom of the inning.

Darin Erstad got the crowd going again by sending a 1-0 pitch from reliever Tim Worrell over the right-field wall to pull Anaheim to within a run. Worrell cursed himself for hanging a change-up.

"I've got to get that first guy," he said. "It changes the whole inning."

Worrell didn't get the second or third guy, either.

Tim Salmon singled, and the decibel level rose another notch. Garret Anderson followed with a bloop into left field that Barry Bonds could not catch. Salmon made his way to third, and when Bonds fumbled the ball, Anderson landed at second. It was a huge error considering what happened next.

Baker called on Nen to face Glaus. With the count at 2-1, Glaus ripped a line drive into left-center field for a two-run double.

The relentless Angels had the lead.

Closer Troy Percival pitched a perfect ninth, and the Angels and Giants made a date for tonight that should greatly improve the television ratings for the Series.

The Giants will have to quickly flush the memory of this loss. For 61/2 innings, they had thought that they were about to be crowned champions.

Ortiz gave San Francisco a great start. Shawon Dunston emerged as an unlikely hero with a two-run home run in the fifth inning off Anaheim righthander Kevin Appier. Barry Bonds seemed to seal his place in World Series history with a long home run off Francisco Rodriguez - his fourth homer of the Series.

When Jeff Kent delivered an RBI single in the top of the seventh to make the score 5-0, he pumped his fist as he headed for first.

"We got beat by a good team," Kent said. "We have to deal with it and come back."

Can they bounce back?

"No need to bounce," Kent said tersely. "Just play. We're down, but we're not out."