Make no mistake, the Red Sox should have lost this game. They should have lost it when they gave the Marlins 14 at bats with runners in scoring position. They should have lost it when Payton Tolle ran out of gas at the end of his outing and allowed five of the last eight men he faced to reach base (including a Heriberto Hernandez home run). And they especially should have lost it in the bottom of the tenth when Aroldis Chapman wasn\u2019t available to close out a one run game and both Andruw Monasterio and Connor Wong made critical blunders that forced the bottom of the bullpen to get five outs in the inning.<\/p>\n
Wong\u2019s egregious effort was specifically problematic because it should have ended the game. Wyatt Olds pitched his butt off and nearly got the equivalent of a four out save (I\u2019m counting Monasterio\u2019s throwing error to lead off the inning as one of them), but because Wong couldn\u2019t move his butt on what should have been the final pitch of the evening, the ball went to the backstop and the Red Sox needed another inning to win the game.<\/p>\n
Very, very rarely does a team recover from a play like this:<\/p>\n
But this is the summer of 2026, and like a law of the universe that doesn\u2019t fully make sense, the Red Sox find inexplicable ways to win.<\/p>\n
So of course, the Marlins go just 1-14 with the chances they had with men in scoring position. And of course, the leadoff double Payton Tolle gives up when he\u2019s teetering gets thrown out at third on the next play. And of course the Red Sox still manage to escape the tenth inning with Alec Gamboa on the mound. And of course, they immediately follow that up with Jarren Duran grand slam in the 11th after he was hitless all night.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the shot from Duran that proved to be the knockout blow:<\/p>\n
But that wasn\u2019t even all of the magic, because before the game ever reached extras, the Sox were getting more improbable production from an unlikely source.<\/p>\n
Normally when you\u2019re looking for Mickey Magic in Florida, you go to Orlando; but tonight, the Red Sox got it in Miami. Mickey Gasper went deep twice, and neither were cheapies. Here\u2019s the first bomb:<\/p>\n
You know what\u2019s crazy? Those Gasper home runs landed a little to each side of the exact spot where Roman Anthony\u2019s home run in the World Baseball Classic that proved to be the game winner against the Dominican Republic landed.<\/p>\n
And speaking of Roman Anthony home runs, he was doing this in Worcester while all that was going on in Miami (I think this ball would have landed in a similar spot to the other three if it occurred in the same ballpark):<\/p>\n
But that wasn\u2019t all that was going on in Worcester. While Andruw Monasterio was throwing the ball away in the tenth, Trevor Story was striking out on pitches like this:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0825-Story-Strikeout.jpg\"\/)
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