The Boston Red Sox's remarkable winning streak has come to an end at 15 games, one short of the club record, ESPN reports. The Baltimore Orioles beat them 5-1 to stop it.
How it ended
The streak reached its peak and its end on the same day.
We reported the Red Sox matching their 80-year-old franchise record of 15 straight wins, set by the 1946 team of Ted Williams. According to ESPN, that 15th win came in the first game of a doubleheader on Wednesday, a 6-3 victory. In the nightcap, the Orioles ended it, winning 5-1 in Boston, so the record-tying win and the streak-ending loss came within hours of each other.
The decisive damage came early. ESPN reports that Baltimore scored four runs in the first inning, with Dylan Beavers driving in two on a single, and that the Orioles' pitcher Kyle Bradish held Boston to one run over six innings, striking out four. Masataka Yoshida drove in Boston's only run.
Keeping it in proportion
Falling one short of a record is the kind of thing that can feel like a letdown, but the Red Sox themselves framed it the right way.
The Boston first baseman Willson Contreras put it plainly, according to ESPN: "That was a great ride, a 15-game winning streak. We should be proud of what we did." That is the correct measure. A 15-game winning streak is a rare achievement, matched only twice in the franchise's long history; not surpassing it does not diminish the run itself.
ESPN offers one piece of context that underlines how uncommon the streak was: it was the longest in Major League Baseball since the St. Louis Cardinals won 15 in a row in September 2021. Streaks of this length come around only every few years across the entire league, which is why even one that ends a game short of a club record is worth marking.
What it leaves behind
The immediate story is a loss, but the larger one is what the streak may signal.
A team does not win 15 in a row by accident, and a run like this often marks a side hitting form at the right point in a long season. The streak is over, and the record stands untouched for now. But the Red Sox have shown, over more than two weeks, that they can beat almost anyone in front of them, and that is the thing a streak leaves behind once the numbers stop: not the record, which they missed, but the evidence of how good they can be.
