{"id":855039,"date":"2026-08-14T14:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/855039\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:08:19","slug":"the-red-sox-white-sox-4-hour-23-minute-marathon-at-fenway-was-an-instant-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/855039\/","title":{"rendered":"The Red Sox-White Sox 4-hour, 23-minute marathon at Fenway was an instant classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

If we were in charge of writing the script for the Strangest But Truest baseball game of the year, we\u2019d probably dream up something like this:<\/p>\n

A team that trailed in the ninth inning \u2026<\/p>\n

And the 10th inning \u2026<\/p>\n

And the 11th inning \u2026<\/p>\n

And the 12th inning \u2026<\/p>\n

And still won.<\/p>\n

Even in a universe teeming with Zombie Runners<\/a>, that still seems impossible. Right?<\/p>\n

Ho-ho-ho. Have you been to Fenway Park lately?<\/p>\n

Last week, on a Thursday night unlike any in Fenway history, the Red Sox played \u2014 and won \u2014 a game in which that script somehow came to life.<\/p>\n

Red Sox 12, White Sox 11, in 13 surreal innings<\/a>. Epic baseball theater. But here\u2019s the reason it deserved a special edition of the Weird and Wild column:<\/p>\n

A team wins after trailing in four different extra innings? Crazy. But believe it or not, that wasn\u2019t even the Strange But True part.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re ready for that part, here we go.<\/p>\n

Why the Red Sox resurgence is historic<\/p>\n

Ken Rosenthal and Johnny Sweet<\/p>\n

Take five<\/p>\n

In the Greatest World Series Game Ever Played (don\u2019t @ me) \u2014 Game 6, 2011* \u2014 the Cardinals won a game in which they trailed five different times.\u00a0You don\u2019t see that much!<\/p>\n

(*paging David Freese<\/a>)<\/p>\n

But on this night of Fenway Magic, you know how many times the Red Sox fell behind the White Sox? Yep. That would be five.<\/p>\n

They trailed, 5-2, in the fourth \u2014 and tied it.<\/p>\n

They trailed, 7-6, in the ninth \u2014 and tied it again.<\/p>\n

They trailed, 9-7, in the 10th \u2026 and 10-9 in the 11th \u2026 and 11-10 in the 12th \u2026 and tied it yet again in all of those innings \u2026 before winning in the 13th.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the work of the great Katie Sharp from Baseball Reference, we can tell you just how rarified that was \u2014 even for a Red Sox team that was such a baseball fireball, it had gone 25-3 in its previous 28 games.<\/p>\n

Since the David Freese Game \u2026\u00a0this was only the third time\u00a0any team had won a game after trailing at least five times. This sport made it through a whole decade without another team doing it. But since then \u2014 because, well \u2026 baseball \u2014 this was the third game like that in the last five seasons.<\/p>\n

The others to pull off that feat: the White Sox on July 6, 2022 (White Sox 9, Twins 8) and the Guardians on June 9, 2023 (Guardians 10, Astros 9 in 14 madcap innings). Meanwhile \u2026<\/p>\n

The Red Sox have played nearly 20,000 games in franchise history \u2026\u00a0but Ted Williams never played in a game like this \u2026 and Carl Yastrzemski never played in a game like this \u2026 and good old Denton (Cy) Young never played in a game like this.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because there had been only two other instances \u2014 in the 117 years of data in the Baseball Reference archives \u2014 that the Red Sox had ever won a game after trailing five times. The others: June 13, 1996 (Red Sox 8, Rangers 7) and April 17, 2006 (Red Sox 7, Mariners 6).<\/p>\n

The Magic Number was 443\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Ranger Su\u00e1rez was one of nine pitchers used by the Red Sox. The White Sox used eight. The teams combined for 443 pitches. (David Butler II \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

To make it through this 4-hour, 23-minute marathon, these teams had to launch a ridiculous 443 pitches toward home plate. That\u2019s the most in any game at Fenway in the Zombie Runner era (since 2020).<\/p>\n

But how\u2019s this for a wild Strange But True plot twist:<\/p>\n

The team that won didn\u2019t hold a lead\u00a0for any of the first 442 pitches.<\/p>\n

According to Baseball Reference\/Stathead, no team in the Zombie Runner era had won a game in which it had to slog through that many pitches to take its first lead, on the final pitch of the game \u2026 because of course there hadn\u2019t been.<\/p>\n

443 plus 5 does not equal 448\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Caleb Durbin sent the Fenway faithful home happy, with a walk-off on the 443rd pitch of the game. (David Butler II \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s recap the nutty knowledge we\u2019ve already laid on you: The Red Sox trailed five different times \u2026 and they won. \u2026 and 443 pitches were thrown in this game \u2026 and the winning team didn\u2019t lead until Caleb Durbin walked it off on the 443rd pitch.<\/p>\n

So how impossible is it to win a game like that? Let\u2019s break that down.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Katie Sharp found only one other Red Sox game since 1910 that was kind of like this one: trailed five different times and never led until the final pitch of the game. That was that 2006 game against Seattle. But \u201conly\u201d 313 pitches were thrown in that game. So let\u2019s give that one a Sorry, Not Quite Award.<\/p>\n

\u2022 And there are only five other teams in the Baseball Reference database that won a game in which they trailed at least five times and\u00a0never led for a single pitch until they won. However \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 We can\u2019t vouch for anything that happened in, say, 1927, because the pitch-counting era only goes back to 1988. But that\u2019s still 39 seasons and more than 140,000 regular-season games. Want to guess how many other teams in all those games had ever won a game in which they trailed at least five different times, saw at least 443 pitches thrown and never held a lead until the last pitch of the game?<\/p>\n

Right you are. That would be zero. Until the 2026 Red Sox.<\/p>\n

More extra points than Adam Vinatieri\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Chase Meidroth homered in the third inning as the White Sox took an early lead. But the Red Sox just kept coming back. (David Butler II \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Extra innings. It was all those extra-inning miracles that allowed the Red Sox to turn a Thursday night at the ballpark into an all-time night for the history books.<\/p>\n

Does this seem hard? Having to score in the ninth \u2026 10th \u2026 11th \u2026 12th \u2026 and 13th innings of a game to finally win it? Let\u2019s go with yes on that, possibly because \u2026<\/p>\n

According to our friends from STATS Perform, only one team in the modern era has ever won a game by scoring in at least five innings from the ninth on. And that team was \u2026<\/p>\n

Yessir, Ceddanne Rafaela\u2019s 2026 Red Sox.<\/p>\n

But wait \u2026<\/p>\n

Because as Katie Sharp reminded me, there\u00a0has\u00a0been one other game in which a team trailed in the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th innings of a game and still won. I\u2019ll never forget it, possibly because \u2026<\/p>\n

I was at that very game.<\/p>\n

On July 24, 1998, the Phillies trailed the Marlins, 3-1, in the ninth \u2026 and 4-3 in the 10th \u2026 and 5-4 in the 11th \u2026 and 6-5 in the 12th \u2026 yet still won it in the bottom of the 12th, 7-6.<\/p>\n

Ruben Amaro Jr. tied it with a home run in the bottom of the 12th. Then my Starkville co-host, Doug Glanville, singled and scored the winning run on a Rico Brogna walk-off. I\u2019ll never forget Len Kasper, then the voice of the Marlins, seeking me out later to say: \u201cWe need to know if this has ever happened. And you\u2019re just the man to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, even back then, this was my thing. But did I find out that answer was \u201cnever\u201d? You know I did. Then, all these years later, Glanville and I found ourselves breaking down the only other game like that\u00a0the other day while recording this weekend\u2019s episode of Starkville.<\/p>\n

So I asked Doug if he thought, when that game happened:\u00a0I\u2019ll never see that again?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always think that, if it\u2019s never happened before,\u201d he said. \u201cBut because baseball\u2019s so crazy, you\u2019re like: Well, I guess it\u2019s crazy enough to make it happen again. It just might be 100 years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or \u2026 possibly 28 years later, on a wondrous night at Fenway that will live on forever, any time people like us go looking for the Strangest But Truest Games Ever Played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If we were in charge of writing the script for the Strangest But Truest baseball game of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5156,5256,591,85],"class_list":["post-855039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}