The Red Sox Are Going to October
They were 32–46. Their season looked dead. Now Boston has one of the most remarkable comeback stories in baseball history.
The Boston Red Sox are going to October, and that sentence would have sounded almost ridiculous three months ago. On June 24, the Red Sox were 32–46, buried 15½ games out of first place in the American League East and six games out of a Wild Card spot with eight teams standing between Boston and postseason position. We weren't discussing playoff matchups. We were wondering whether the Red Sox had already lost another Boston summer.
They hadn't.
On Sunday, September 20, Boston officially clinched a postseason berth in one of those wonderfully strange ways baseball occasionally delivers. The Red Sox had already lost to Tampa Bay, 5–1, so there was no dogpile on the field and no walk-off celebration at home plate. Instead, Boston needed Houston to lose to Atlanta, and less than an hour later, the Braves delivered.
Even the way it happened seemed written for Boston. Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, hit the three-run home run that broke a 1–1 tie and put Atlanta ahead for good. Decades after Yaz became part of the fabric of Fenway Park, another Yastrzemski helped send the Red Sox to October.
From 32–46 to October
The clincher makes a great story, but it isn't really the story. The remarkable part is that the Red Sox were still in position to clinch anything at all after the hole they had dug by late June.
Boston's turnaround began June 25 with a four-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park. A week later, the Red Sox began a winning streak that eventually reached 15 games, tying the franchise record set by the 1946 Red Sox of Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky. Even after that streak ended, Boston kept winning.
At one point, the Red Sox went 27–3 over 30 games, the best 30-game stretch in franchise history. From June 25 through August 7, they were 32–5. Think about those two numbers for a moment: the same team that began its season 32–46 then went 32–5 over its next 37 games.
And now comes the statistic that may define this entire season. The 2026 Boston Red Sox became the first team in Major League Baseball history to lose 46 of its first 78 games and still finish with a winning record.
Not the first Red Sox team.
The first team in baseball history.
Boston Got Its Summer Back
There is something about a Red Sox season that becomes part of the rhythm of this city. Fenway lights up at night. The game comes through open windows, restaurant televisions and radios on porches. People check the score on the T, at the beach, walking through the Public Garden or sitting in traffic on Storrow Drive. Even when you aren't at Fenway, the Red Sox are part of a Boston summer.
By late June, it felt as though that summer might be slipping away. The standings were ugly, the season was approaching its midpoint, and there were perfectly reasonable questions about whether the Red Sox should start thinking about selling rather than chasing a postseason spot.
Then they started winning, and kept winning, and suddenly Fenway felt different again. Games mattered. September mattered. Boston started looking at the Wild Card standings instead of the calendar.
Last week, rookie Payton Tolle provided one beautiful little snapshot of what this season had become when he opened a game against Kansas City with an immaculate inning: nine pitches, nine strikes and three strikeouts. It was only the eighth immaculate inning on record in Red Sox history, and I wrote about it because a moment that rare deserved its own story.
Now we can zoom out and see where that moment fits.
Tolle's immaculate inning wasn't the story of this Red Sox season. It was one scene inside something much larger — a baseball team that looked finished in June and refused to stay finished.
“Stayin' Alive”
Inside the Red Sox clubhouse Sunday, one of the songs playing during the celebration was the Bee Gees' “Stayin' Alive.” It would have been difficult to choose a better soundtrack.
That's what this team did. They stayed alive through a 32–46 start, a managerial change, injuries and weeks when almost every reasonable calculation said the season was slipping away. They couldn't erase those 46 losses, so they did the only thing a baseball team can do: they kept playing the games in front of them.
Now there will be baseball after September.
There are still regular-season games to play, playoff positioning to determine and an opponent to settle. What happens in October remains unwritten.
But Boston has already accomplished something that no Major League Baseball team had ever accomplished before.
We thought we were losing our summer.
The Red Sox gave it back to us.
See you in October.
Join My Community
GoBoston is about more than telling visitors where to eat or what to see. It's about Boston — our neighborhoods, history, sports, food, waterfront, traditions, people and the moments that make this city feel like home whether you were born here or fell in love with it later.
If you love Boston too, join my GoBoston community and subscribe to GoBoston Substack.
Go Boston.
Sources
Major League Baseball, “'Stayin' Alive!' Red Sox clinch postseason spot that once seemed improbable,” September 20, 2026.
Major League Baseball, “What's behind the Red Sox's midseason surge?” July 20, 2026.
Major League Baseball, “He knew! Tolle cracks smile before capping immaculate inning,” September 14, 2026.