BOSTON — In a Boston Red Sox season full of implausible, unbelievable, unexpected twists and turns, Thursday’s win provided the latest unreal chapter.
For four hours, 22 minutes, the Red Sox never led the Chicago White Sox, battling back five times to tie the score, including in the bottom of the ninth of what turned out to be the longest game by time in the pitch clock era for the Red Sox and the longest game at Fenway Park since 2021.
In the bottom of the 13th, Caleb Durbin ended the marathon with a one-out RBI single up the middle, scoring Nick Sogard, who slid headfirst across the plate in an exhausting and exhilarating 12-11 victory, one that stretched the Red Sox’s win streak to eight games.
Durbin threw his arms wide as he rounded first to the deafening roar of Fenway’s sellout crowd of 37,082, which shook the ballpark in disbelief.
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“This one ranks at the top of the list, I’d say,” a weary interim manager Chad Tracy said as he slumped into a chair in the news conference room minutes later. “You guys can ask me questions about the game. I don’t know if I’ll quite remember what inning certain things happened. It was unbelievable. They just did not want to lose. It was incredible.”
“Relief,” Durbin said, when asked for a word to describe what just happened. “We wanted that one. I wanted that one bad.”
That Durbin, who’d jammed his pinkie finger earlier in the game and had it taped back up, was the hero once again, proved poetic for a player who most closely resembles the team’s rise from obscurity this season.
The Red Sox have won 10 of their last 11 games and are an MLB-best 31-5 since June 25, the best 36-game stretch in franchise history. They’ve swept seven of their last 11 series and sit in second place in the American League wild-card race, a half game behind the New York Yankees for the top spot.
The game commenced in immensely humid conditions with a first-pitch temperature of 89 degrees and started off on a sour note for the Red Sox. Starter Ranger Suarez lasted just three innings, allowing four runs, three earned, in one of his worst starts of the year.
“I thought (the heat) affected everybody on both sides,” Tracy said. “I’m drenched in sweat, and I wasn’t even playing. So that gives you an idea of how sticky it was out there.”
Trailing 4-0 in the third, the Red Sox got a two-run homer from Connor Wong. They fell behind 5-2 the next half inning, but tied the score for the first time, 5-5, in the bottom of the fourth. Andruw Monasterio doubled to make it 5-3, and Anthony Seigler hit a two-run double to tie the score.
In the midst of it all, the Red Sox were without their best hitter, Willson Contreras, who exited Wednesday’s game with illness and was not available Thursday. Tracy said he’d be re-evaluated Friday.
That made the comeback even more impressive.
A Justin Slaten error allowed the White Sox to pull ahead 7-5 in the fifth, but Boston bounded back again. Masataka Yoshida hit an RBI double in the sixth to make it 7-6, but the Red Sox stranded runners in the seventh and eighth.
In the bottom of the ninth, Wong led off with a double, and Eli White ran for him. Sogard bunted White over, and with two outs, Wilyer Abreu singled to drive in White, tying the score as Fenway erupted for one of many times on the night. When Abreu tried to steal second and was thrown out, the game went to extras as the melee ensued.
The White Sox scored in the 10th, 11th and 12th, and the Red Sox responded each time to tie it.
With Suarez exiting so early, Tracy weaved through his bullpen for the next 10 innings, using all eight of his relievers, finally turning to long man Brayan Bello in the 12th. Bello pitched three innings two days prior and wouldn’t have pitched past the 14th, Tracy said, adding he would have had to use a position player.
Instead, Bello held the White Sox scoreless in the top of the 13th with three quick outs before the Red Sox pounced on their opportunity.
With Sogard as the automatic runner on second, the White Sox walked Abreu with one out to set up a double play with Durbin coming to the plate. He made them pay.
“We’re going to do what it takes to win the game,” Tracy said. “And I think today was, what you saw was a team that just didn’t want to lose. And the way it was going, we may have (lost), but they were going to give it everything they had to make sure it didn’t happen. It was really impressive.”
Durbin recorded three hits, Seigler and Monasterio two apiece. The bullpen did its part. The lineup battled inning after inning. The defense made game-saving plays.
“Everybody is exhausted,” Tracy said. “It feels much better to be exhausted with a win than it does if you would’ve lost.”
