If we were in charge of writing the script for the Strangest But Truest baseball game of the year, we’d probably dream up something like this:
A team that trailed in the ninth inning …
And the 10th inning …
And the 11th inning …
And the 12th inning …
And still won.
Even in a universe teeming with Zombie Runners, that still seems impossible. Right?
Ho-ho-ho. Have you been to Fenway Park lately?
Last week, on a Thursday night unlike any in Fenway history, the Red Sox played — and won — a game in which that script somehow came to life.
Red Sox 12, White Sox 11, in 13 surreal innings. Epic baseball theater. But here’s the reason it deserved a special edition of the Weird and Wild column:
A team wins after trailing in four different extra innings? Crazy. But believe it or not, that wasn’t even the Strange But True part.
If you’re ready for that part, here we go.
Why the Red Sox resurgence is historic
Ken Rosenthal and Johnny Sweet
Take five
In the Greatest World Series Game Ever Played (don’t @ me) — Game 6, 2011* — the Cardinals won a game in which they trailed five different times. You don’t see that much!
(*paging David Freese)
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.
They trailed, 5-2, in the fourth — and tied it.
They trailed, 7-6, in the ninth — and tied it again.
They trailed, 9-7, in the 10th … and 10-9 in the 11th … and 11-10 in the 12th … and tied it yet again in all of those innings … before winning in the 13th.
Thanks to the work of the great Katie Sharp from Baseball Reference, we can tell you just how rarified that was — even for a Red Sox team that was such a baseball fireball, it had gone 25-3 in its previous 28 games.
Since the David Freese Game … this was only the third time any 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 — because, well … baseball — this was the third game like that in the last five seasons.
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 …
The Red Sox have played nearly 20,000 games in franchise history … but Ted Williams never played in a game like this … and Carl Yastrzemski never played in a game like this … and good old Denton (Cy) Young never played in a game like this.
That’s because there had been only two other instances — in the 117 years of data in the Baseball Reference archives — 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).
The Magic Number was 443
Ranger Suárez 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)
To make it through this 4-hour, 23-minute marathon, these teams had to launch a ridiculous 443 pitches toward home plate. That’s the most in any game at Fenway in the Zombie Runner era (since 2020).
But how’s this for a wild Strange But True plot twist:
The team that won didn’t hold a lead for any of the first 442 pitches.
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 … because of course there hadn’t been.
443 plus 5 does not equal 448
Caleb Durbin sent the Fenway faithful home happy, with a walk-off on the 443rd pitch of the game. (David Butler II / Imagn Images)
Let’s recap the nutty knowledge we’ve already laid on you: The Red Sox trailed five different times … and they won. … and 443 pitches were thrown in this game … and the winning team didn’t lead until Caleb Durbin walked it off on the 443rd pitch.
So how impossible is it to win a game like that? Let’s break that down.
• 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 “only” 313 pitches were thrown in that game. So let’s give that one a Sorry, Not Quite Award.
• 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 never led for a single pitch until they won. However …
• We can’t vouch for anything that happened in, say, 1927, because the pitch-counting era only goes back to 1988. But that’s 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?
Right you are. That would be zero. Until the 2026 Red Sox.
More extra points than Adam Vinatieri
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)
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.
Does this seem hard? Having to score in the ninth … 10th … 11th … 12th … and 13th innings of a game to finally win it? Let’s go with yes on that, possibly because …
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 …
Yessir, Ceddanne Rafaela’s 2026 Red Sox.
But wait …
Because as Katie Sharp reminded me, there has been one other game in which a team trailed in the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th innings of a game and still won. I’ll never forget it, possibly because …
I was at that very game.
On July 24, 1998, the Phillies trailed the Marlins, 3-1, in the ninth … and 4-3 in the 10th … and 5-4 in the 11th … and 6-5 in the 12th … yet still won it in the bottom of the 12th, 7-6.
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’ll never forget Len Kasper, then the voice of the Marlins, seeking me out later to say: “We need to know if this has ever happened. And you’re just the man to find out.”
Yeah, even back then, this was my thing. But did I find out that answer was “never”? You know I did. Then, all these years later, Glanville and I found ourselves breaking down the only other game like that the other day while recording this weekend’s episode of Starkville.
So I asked Doug if he thought, when that game happened: I’ll never see that again?
“You always think that, if it’s never happened before,” he said. “But because baseball’s so crazy, you’re like: Well, I guess it’s crazy enough to make it happen again. It just might be 100 years from now.”
Or … 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.
