Red Sox tie franchise-record 15-game win streak with victory over Orioles

BOSTON – Fenway Park was 34 years old.

A 6-year-old future Hall of Famer named Carl Yastrzemski was just picking up a bat.

World War II had ended 10 months prior.

It was 1946, and that was the last time the Red Sox had a 15-game winning streak.

On Wednesday, the 2026 team matched that 80-year-old franchise record with a 6-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles.

The Red Sox will try for the franchise record of 16 straight on Wednesday night in the second game of a doubleheader.

Their 15-game streak marks the longest win streak in the majors since 2021 when the St. Louis Cardinals reeled off 17 straight. The record is 26 wins in a row set by the 1916 New York Giants.

The Red Sox wasted little time setting the tone in the first inning as Caleb Durbin’s bases-loaded, two-run single followed by Jarren Duran’s two-run triple into the right-field corner gave the Red Sox an early 4-0 lead from which they never looked back. Rookie starter Jake Bennett allowed three runs over 5 2/3 innings of work. Aroldis Chapman closed out the win in the ninth to secure his 390th career save, tying Dennis Eckersley for ninth on the all-time saves list.

Unlike that 1946 juggernaut led by MVP Ted Williams (in his first season back from fighting in World War II), the 2026 team was anything but for the first three months of the season. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow fired manager Alex Cora and six coaches on April 25 after a disappointing 10-17 start. Breslow promoted Chad Tracy from Triple-A Worcester to interim manager for his first big-league managerial job. But as of June 24, the Red Sox were 14 games below .500 and Breslow’s job was on the line. The Red Sox were all but assured to sell.

Since then, they’ve reeled off wins in 20 of their last 22 games, including 15 straight since July 3.

In the midst of this historic streak, the Red Sox have received contributions up and down the lineup with eight different players recording go-ahead or winning RBIs. They’ve done all this without infielders Trevor Story, Marcelo Mayer and Isiah Kiner-Falefa and outfielder Roman Anthony. They’ve been missing their ace and American Cy Young runner-up, Garrett Crochet, since April. A combination of players called up from Triple A fighting for their big-league lives has reinvigorated the Red Sox and helped them find their offensive rhythm.

This win streak began with nine straight wins on the road to close out the first half. Four of those wins pre-break came without the club’s best hitter in Willson Contreras, who served a five-game suspension for his part in a brawl with the Washington Nationals before the All-Star break. The Red Sox began their 15-game stretch with a sweep of the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim during the Fourth of July weekend and continued against a hot Chicago White Sox team. The streak endured against the New York Mets despite arriving for the three-game series just two hours before first pitch due to two separate flight issues.

The break could have been a momentum killer for a 9-0 team, but the Red Sox picked up where they left off, completing a doubleheader sweep on Friday against the American League East-leading Tampa Bay Rays. Boston took two more over the weekend from Tampa before another win on Monday against Baltimore, snapping the Orioles’ own seven-game win streak.

Now they will attempt to make franchise history twice in the same day.