From a pair of errors by two new faces brought in to inject life to the Red Sox offense, to a pair of walks and passed balls by arms coming out of an overextended bullpen, to key hits by a Kansas City Royals lineup that’s come up with plenty on their recent hot streak, the way the sixth inning unraveled felt like a microcosm of a frustrating month.

But the late-game rally the Red Sox put together to come away with a 9-8 win crystalized the all-hands-on-deck mentality that’s allowed them to keep their heads above water despite a difficult July.

An offense searching for itself in recent weeks manufactured the runs needed to stay alive.

Trailing, 8-6, in the seventh, Andrew Benintendi and Hanley Ramirez worked walks to start the inning. A passed ball moved Benintendi to third and they took advantage when Jackie Bradley Jr. shot a sacrifice fly to right to trim the deficit to one.

Christian Vazquez led off the eighth with a single to center and Brock Holt came in to pinch run. A wild pitch moved him to second, and a single by Rafael Devers pushed him to third. Mookie Betts lifted a fly ball to center to score Holt and tie the game.

For the ninth time this season, Craig Kimbrel came into a tie game. He sat the Royals down in order in the ninth, striking out Mike Moustakas and Brandon Moss. In 9⅔ innings when he’s entered in a tie game, Kimbrel has a 0.00 ERA and 17 strikeouts with just one walk.

The Sox capitalized in the 10th when Sandy Leon doubled off Royals reliever Mike Minor to lead off the inning. After striking out Devers, Minor intentionally walked Betts. With Eduardo Nunez at the plate, another wild pitch pushed the runners to second and third.

Nunez already had a pair of solo homers under his belt — the second multihomer game of his career.

But a ground ball to the middle of the infield ended up his biggest swing of the night. He bounced a soft ground ball to Alcides Escobar at short. Escobar dived to make the play, then hopped up to get the out at first.

At third, Leon froze close to the bag watching the play unfold. He broke late, but narrowly dodged the outstretched glove of Royals catcher Drew Butera to tag home and give the Sox the win.

The win was the Sox’ sixth walkoff of the season, twice as many as they had last season and their most since 2014.

For the fifth time this month — and the fourth time since the all-star break — the Sox went to extra innings.

Nunez walked off the field with a face full of shaving cream. The Sox were last in the American League (27th in baseball) in homers coming into the night. The two blasts already put Nunez two shy of Dustin Pedroia and Betts for the second-most on the team this month.

After Eduardo Rodriguez ran up 107 pitches in four innings of work, Farrell had to call on six arms out of the bullpen.

From the sixth inning on, Robby Scott, Heath Hembree, Kimbrel, and Matt Barns combined to give the Sox five shutout innings, with five strikeouts and four hits allowed.

After battling in a back-and-forth game, the Sox took a 6-4 lead into the sixth inning. Sox manager John Farrell had to reach into his bullpen earlier than expected after Rodriguez ran up 107 pitches in four innings.

Lefthander Fernando Abad threw a scoreless fifth and Farrell stuck with him to start the sixth. But Abad quickly found himself in trouble.

He got a routine ground ball out of Escobar to start the inning, but rookie third baseman Devers whizzed a throw by Mitch Moreland at first for an error, giving the Royals a leadoff runner.

Abad followed with an eight-pitch staredown with Alex Gordon, but missed with a curveball on a full count to put two runners on.

In a precarious spot, Farrell called on righthander Blaine Boyer to do damage control. But when an 0-and-1 pitch to Whit Merrifield popped out of Vazquez’s glove, moving the runners to second and third, things got tighter.

Merrifield, who already had three singles on the night, tapped a soft ball to Devers, who tried to barehand it but couldn’t and Escobar trotted home to cut the Sox lead to 6-5.

The Royals tied the game when Jorge Bonifacio followed with a line single to right that scored Gordon.

That was only the start of the Sox’s troubles.

After Boyer walked Lorenzo Cain to load the bases, Farrell went to Scott.

But the Royals tacked on two more runs, with Merrifield scoring on a ground ball by Eric Hosmer and then Bonifacio coming in on a sacrifice fly by Salvador Perez.

Two base-running mistakes by Xander Bogaerts cost the Sox runs. With one out in the second inning, Jackie Bradley Jr. was on second and Bogaerts on first when Moreland shot a fly ball to right-center field.

Bradley tagged up, and Bogaerts tried to follow behind him, but was thrown out easily by center fielder Cain. The next hitter, Vazquez, tripled to drive in Bradley.

The Sox tacked on another run in the third on a solo homer by Nunez.

But in the fourth, after an RBI single by Merrifield and a three-run homer Cain gave the Royals a 4-2 lead, Bogaerts’s aggressiveness cost the Sox another run.

With one out, he reached on an infield single, diving head first to beat Hosmer to the bag. He then broke for second when a 1-and-0 curveball to Moreland from Royals starter Trevor Cahill bounced in dirt.

But Perez gathered it quickly and gunned Bogaerts down at second. Moreland walked and eventually scored on a double by Vazquez, and Vazquez eventually came around on an RBI single by Devers to tie it.

Nunez added another solo homer in the fifth to that put the Sox up, 5-4.

Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com.