Rainout Gives Red Sox Two Shots at a Franchise-Record Win Streak

Rain and thunderstorms wiped out Tuesday’s Red Sox-Orioles game at Fenway Park. Boston’s shot at franchise history did not shrink. It doubled. Wednesday’s day-night doubleheader gives the Red Sox two chances at the 1946 team’s record 15-game winning streak, with a win in the opener enough to tie it and a sweep enough to make it Boston’s alone.

The complication sitting underneath all that history is Ranger Suarez, the $130 million lefty Boston still will not rush back from a groin strain, and a rookie right-hander who was supposed to start Tuesday before the sky opened up instead.

One Rainout, Two Shots at History

Tuesday’s postponement came down to timing. Storms rolled toward Boston in the afternoon, the tarp went down on the Fenway infield, and the game never got a first pitch. The Red Sox and Orioles will instead play a traditional split doubleheader Wednesday.

Game 1 starts at 1:35 p.m., with Boston lefty Jake Bennett, 5-3 with a 2.35 earned run average (ERA), opposite Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer, who is 1-2 with a 4.15 ERA. Game 2 begins at 7:10 p.m., and Baltimore has already named its starter: Kyle Bradish, 6-9 with a 3.61 ERA. Boston has not.

What is set for Wednesday:

• Game 1 first pitch is 1:35 p.m., Jake Bennett against Dean Kremer.
• Game 2 first pitch is 7:10 p.m., with Kyle Bradish starting for Baltimore.
• A win in Game 1 ties the 1946 Red Sox for the longest streak in franchise history, and a sweep sets a new one.

What Boston has not decided:

• Who starts Game 2 for the Red Sox.
• Whether Ranger Suarez is activated off the injured list in time for that assignment.
• Whether rookie Eduardo Rivera, scratched from Tuesday’s rained-out start, gets the ball instead.

Interim manager Chad Tracy left both doors open Tuesday afternoon, and the reason traces straight back to his injured left-hander.

Boston Still Won’t Rush Its $130 Million Lefty

Suarez signed a five-year, $130 million contract with Boston last winter after spending his entire career with the Phillies. He made his first All-Star team in his first season with the Red Sox, then strained his left groin on July 5 against the Angels and has not pitched since.

He was eligible to come off the 15-day injured list Tuesday, and the original plan was to activate him and start him against Baltimore. Instead, the team announced around 12:40 p.m. that rookie Eduardo Rivera would start in his place. The rainout pushes that decision to Wednesday, when Suarez could take the ball for Game 2 if he feels right, or Rivera could get the start if he does not.

Tracy said there is “nothing serious” going on with Suarez.

“Just a little bit of moderate soreness just from all the work over the last couple of days,” Tracy said. “Also wasn’t feeling very well. A little under the weather on top of it. Between those two things combined, having him go out there and activating him didn’t make any sense.”

Asked why the Game 2 starter is still undecided, Tracy pointed right back to his pitcher’s health.

“Could be that’s why we’re making it TBD,” Tracy said. “We’ve just gotta wait and see how he feels tomorrow.”

Suarez is not the only front-line arm Boston has lost this season.

• Garrett Crochet, the opening-day ace, has been out with a shoulder and oblique injury and still has not returned.
• Connelly Early has been sidelined by an elbow injury.
• Ranger Suarez is the third left-handed starter Boston has lost to the injured list this year.

The Red Sox have also played much of the season without outfielder Roman Anthony, shortstop Trevor Story and infielder Marcelo Mayer.

Worst in Baseball to 51-48

Boston opened 2026 as one of the American League’s most talked-about rosters and instead stumbled to 10-17. The Red Sox fired Alex Cora on April 25 and promoted Chad Tracy, then managing Triple-A Worcester, on an interim basis.

It did not get better right away. By June 24, Boston had the worst record in the American League, 15 and a half games behind the Yankees at 32-46.

1. April 25: The Red Sox fire manager Alex Cora after a 10-17 start and hand the job to Chad Tracy, previously managing Triple-A Worcester.
2. June 24: Boston sits at 32-46, the worst record in the American League and 15 and a half games behind the Yankees in the East.
3. Late June: The Red Sox sweep a four-game series from the Yankees, then sweep the Rays, pushing the winning streak to 13 games.
4. July 20: Caleb Durbin’s eighth-inning home run beats Baltimore 6-5 for a 14th straight win, and Boston improves to 51-48.

Players point to a miserable stretch of travel as the moment the team turned. Boston was delayed getting home from Denver in late June, then spent close to a full day getting from Chicago to New York after beating the White Sox on July 9. Speaking with the Boston Globe, reliever Justin Slaten credited the ordeal with pulling the roster together.

“In a weird way, it gave us this attitude that whatever happens, happens,” Slaten said. “Everything is against us, let’s just go out there and have fun.”

“The players are happy,” Boston’s 38-year-old closer, Aroldis Chapman, told the Globe. “Everybody is enjoying the game, and we’re playing together.”

Only One Other Streak Ever Went Longer

The 1946 Red Sox are the only team in club history to win more games in a row. That streak ran 15 games, from April 25 to May 10, built on a roster with six All-Stars in the everyday lineup, two more in the rotation, and Ted Williams on his way to an American League MVP award.

Boston outscored opponents 111-52 during that run and hit .315 as a team. The 15th win came at Yankee Stadium on May 10, in front of a reported crowd of 64,183, closed out by reliever Earl Johnson, who had just returned from World War Two after earning a Bronze Star and Silver Star for combat that included throwing hand grenades at a German tank.

That 1946 club cruised to the American League pennant, finishing 12 games ahead of Detroit at 104-50. Then it lost the World Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals, sealed when Enos Slaughter scored from first base on a single in the eighth inning of Game 7 while Boston shortstop Johnny Pesky hesitated on the relay throw.

The 1948 Red Sox won 13 straight, the mark Boston tied earlier this month. That team won 96 games and then lost a one-game tiebreaker to Cleveland, missing the World Series entirely. The 2018 club, which won it all, never got past a 10-game streak.

The two longest streaks in team history both ended in heartbreak. The shortest of the three, in 2018, ended with a championship parade.

Is Chad Tracy More Than an Interim Manager?

Tracy is 40 years old and managing in the majors for the first time, promoted from Triple-A Worcester the day Boston fired Cora. The interim label has not come off since, even as his team plays its best baseball in decades, and the front office says the rest of this season will decide his future.

“We believe that Chad is the right guy to handle this transition and we’re going to put all of our effort into supporting him to do that,” chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said when Tracy took over in April.

Boston has not run a full managerial search since it hired Cora before the 2018 season. Whether Tracy keeps the job past this year depends on how the rest of the schedule plays out, though those close to the roster consider him the leading in-house candidate given his history with it.

The winning streak has also reshaped the calculus at the trade deadline. Breslow was still described as undecided on Boston’s deadline approach even as the wins piled up, a question the streak turns from whether to buy into how much to spend doing it.

First Pitch Is 1:35 at Fenway

The tarp came off the infield in time for Wednesday. Grounds crews expect a full workday at Fenway Park, with sun in the forecast for the first time in two days.

Bennett throws the Game 1 first pitch against Kremer at 1:35 p.m. By the time Bradish and Boston’s still-unnamed Game 2 starter take over at 7:10 p.m., the Red Sox will know whether the record stands at 15, or belongs to them alone at 16.