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BOSTON – In the bottom of the ninth, with the home team trailing by four, the biggest crowd of the season at Fenway Park was not yet ready to concede.
They had seen too much over the last few weeks, witnessed too many comebacks and improbable victories and they were not about to leave early now just for the opportunity to get a head start on the postgame traffic.
In April, May or June, the aisles would have been jammed and the ballpark already half empty.
But not now.
“I think they were waiting for us to load the bases, I really do,” said Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy. “The way we’ve come back the last four or five days...that was something we didn’t do earlier in the season. All of a sudden, we found a way to come back. Down one, we score. Down three, we come back and score. Down two, we come back and tie it.
“They were on their feet and I felt like (they were thinking) ‘Let’s stick around and see if they load the bases and get the tying run to the plate.’ That’s how it felt, which was awesome.”
This time, the hope was misplaced. After Willson Contreras was plunked to lead off the inning, the Red Sox went without much of a fight — a flyout, an infield pop-up and a soft liner, and like that, the 15-game win streak was no more.
The Red Sox would have to settle for a share of history with the 1946 Sox. Given that that team won a pennant and got as far as Game 7 of the World Series, there are worse comparisons to have.
There was no shame in their 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
“We just won 15 games in a row,” said Tracy. “I think all of us knew that was going to end at some point. It just happened to end tonight...It’s something to be proud of, you know? The big thing is, the 2026 Red Sox are at the top of the list as far as winning streaks are concerned. That’s a pretty cool accomplishment.”
Tracy had intended to share those sentiments with his team in the clubhouse postgame, but when he entered, he found that his two most senior players – Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray — were already conveying that very message.
“I think we can beat anybody — that’s Lesson No. 1," said Contreras. “We are a good team, in the battles, in our resiliency, in the stick together, win or lose. That was a great ride. There’s nothing to be sad about; we have to be happy. We should be proud of what we did, and from now on, just keep playing the way we’ve been playing lately.”
That, after all, is the ultimate byproduct of The Streak. The Red Sox, like the fans who stayed until the final out, now believe. One loss, even it as came with the team was on precipice of breaking an 80-year-old record, does not diminish that.
“We all learned from this,” said Contreras. “The adjustments we made as a group, as a team, were amazing.”
The streak is over, and with it, any distractions it might have brought. Now, the focus is on the final two months of the season and the push for a playoff spot.
It wasn’t just that the Red Sox, seemingly out of nowhere, ripped off 15 victories in a row. It was that they fashioned that streak after falling to 14 games below .500, teetering on irrelevancy.
They didn’t just wedge themselves into the record books — they also salvaged the season.
Next up: securing a chance to play in October.
“To get there,” said Contreras, “we have to win as many games as we can. From this streak, we learned that we can beat anybody. We have to keep picking each other up and keep making adjustments. That’s the way to go about it.”
The streak is over. Long live the streak.
“What happened within (the streak), the way the identity of team changed within it, is most important,” said Tracy. “Alright, what created that? We’re very aware of the quality of the at-bats, the starts, the bullpen work, the things that we did. If that’s who we are as a team, if we continue that, we’re going to win games.”
The streak was never an albatross. But just because it’s gone doesn’t mean the Red Sox can’t keep benefitting from it.
“Now that’s behind us,” said Tracy of the run. “The big thing is, if we continue to play baseball that way, regardless of how many wins in a row, we’re going to win a heck of a lot more than we lose. That’s the focus now.”
And that’s a pretty nice souvenir from a magical two and a half weeks that no one saw coming in the first place.
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