Caleb Durbin’s late homer extends Red Sox’ historic winning streak

The Red Sox entered Fenway Park riding a 13-game winning streak, while the Orioles had won seven straight of their own. In the end, Boston found another way to win.

Caleb Durbin crushed a go-ahead solo home run into the Green Monster seats with two outs in the eighth inning, lifting the Red Sox to a 6-5 victory over Baltimore and extending Boston’s winning streak to 14 games.

“The electricity on that one is probably top of the list,” Durbin said. “Just being able to come through for the guys and get the lead there was big.”

It was Durbin’s second career blast to give his team the lead in the 8th inning or later. 

Boston has now won 19 of its last 21 games, improved to 51-48, its highest mark above .500 this season, and moved within one victory of tying the franchise record of 15 consecutive wins set in 1946. 

During the Sox’ impressive 14-game win streak, they’ve won by two or fewer runs five times, including three games by one run.

“That was unbelievable,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said. “It was a heck of an effort, we had to come back multiple times and kept fighting back. It was a heck of a win.”

Payton Tolle gave the Red Sox another quality outing despite taking a no-decision.

The rookie left-hander overpowered Baltimore early, striking out seven through the first four innings while relying heavily on his fastball. Tolle finished with nine strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings, allowing four runs on seven hits while walking one.

Tolle has struck out nine or more batters for the third time in his young career. He was two shy from hitting his career-high of 11, which he set against the Yankees back in April. 

“That was an incredible one. Just an incredible game,” Tolle said. “To come out in a game like that is incredible, guys picking each other up and there’s been a lot of this in this run here but it’s been incredible to watch and incredible to be a part of.”

The Orioles struck first in the opening inning when Gunnar Henderson doubled before Tyler O’Neill dropped an RBI ground-rule double just inside the right-field line.

Boston responded in the second inning. 

Willson Contreras advanced to third on a flyout before Jarren Duran lifted a sacrifice fly to center, tying the game at 1-1.

The Red Sox took advantage of Baltimore’s defense an inning later.

Jeremiah Jackson’s two-out error kept the inning alive before Ceddanne Rafaela raced home from first on Wilyer Abreu’s RBI double into the left-center field gap. Abreu moved to third on another Orioles error, and Contreras followed with an RBI single that glanced off Henderson’s glove, giving Boston a 3-1 lead.

For Abreu, he recorded his team-leading 29th multi-hit game, three more than his previous career high of 26 multi-hit games in 2025.

The Orioles cut the deficit to one in the fifth on Christian Encarnacion-Strand’s solo home run, but Tolle appeared poised to escape another jam in the sixth.

Instead, Baltimore mounted its biggest rally of the night.

With two outs and Tolle one strike away from ending the inning, the Orioles strung together three consecutive singles. Leody Taveras started the rally before Jackson tied the game with an RBI single. Encarnacion-Strand followed with another run-scoring single that deflected off Tolle’s leg, putting Baltimore in front 4-3.

It was an uncharacteristic finish for Tolle, who had largely controlled the Orioles lineup through the first five innings.

“I actually thought he was pretty good,” Tracy said of Tolle’s performance. “Obviously they strung some together in that last inning, a couple opposite field hits in the first to get a run, I thought he settled in really nicely minus the Strand home run which was just he jumped a heater on him, and outside of that he was very effective.”

The Orioles’ lead was short-lived as the never-say-die Red Sox answered once again.

Abreu reached to open the bottom of the sixth when Orioles starter Shane Baz threw