Our Sox are on fire!
With all of the excitement of the World Cup, the Tall Ships, and the Revere Beach Sand Castle Festival in the rearview mirror, we were ready to settle in for a relatively-nonchalant second half of the summer season.
With the Red Sox hopelessly wallowing in the mire of mediocrity (if that), even the Sox’ front office seemed to have a, “Wait ‘til next year,” mindset, ready to trade away some top players by the July 31 trade deadline for future prospects.
But just when everyone was ready to give up on the 2026 season, the unexpected happened — the Sox caught fire. A four-game sweep of the Yankees in late June was satisfying (because it was the Yankees), but at the time we could hardly have imagined that it would provide the spark that would jump-start the Sox into playoff contention.
Those of us who had written off the Sox in 2026 now are jumping on the bandwagon after the Sox’ historic 15-game winning streak, which included sweeps of the AL Central-leading White Sox and the AL East-leading Rays, a skein that has propelled the Red Sox into the second spot in the Wild Card race.
What has been most impressive about the Sox’ success is that they have accomplished it without the two players, ace pitcher Garrett Crochet and young slugger Roman Anthony, and coach Alex Cora, who were seen in the pre-season as essential to their hopes for reaching the playoffs.
The 15-game streak equals the legendary 1946 team for the longest in Red Sox history. And for those of us who are long-time Sox fans (though not quite old enough to have been around in 1946!), the recent streak recalls the 10-game streak of the 1967 Impossible Dream team and the 12-game streak that was known as “Morgan Magic” in 1988.
All three of those teams achieved great success, winning the pennants in 1946 and 1967 and the division in 1988, though they all fell short of a World Series championship.
So whether history will repeat itself in 2026 — or whether this streak was just a mid-season fluke — remains to be seen. But at least the streak has given us hope that this young Sox squad will remain in contention throughout the rest of the summer and has given us a reason to take a peek at the sports pages every day.