Boston Red Sox
“To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. And it doesn’t matter who we’re playing.”
Caleb Durbin clubbed his first career grand slam on Tuesday. (Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff)
August 5, 2026 | 7:43 AM
4 minutes to read
What a difference a couple of months can make for Caleb Durbin and the Red Sox.
In mid-May, Durbin was seemingly one of the poster children for Craig Breslow’s disastrous offseason — with Boston’s pivot toward defensive fortitude and upside undercut by discouraging results night in and night out this spring.
Handed the unenviable task of replacing Alex Bregman at third base, Durbin was one of several bats in Boston’s lineup that went cold during a listless start to the 2026 season.
Even with the defensive value he offered at the hot corner, Durbin was batting just .163 with one home run and 16 RBI over his first 48 games in a Red Sox uniform — with the 26-year-old infielder routinely drawing a steady stream of jeers whenever he stepped up to the plate at Fenway Park.
That sentiment — and soundtrack emanating from Boston’s ballpark — has changed in short order for both Durbin and the Red Sox, to say the least.
“I mean, anytime you hear that crowd pop, and you get a big hit,” Durbin said Tuesday. “It’s special here.”
On a night where the Red Sox’ bats once again teed off against a top big-league opponent, it was Durbin who opened the floodgates — punctuating a six-run first inning with his first career grand slam.
Durbin’s big fly — deposited into the second row of the Monster Seats — set the tone for Boston’s eventual 14-2 blowout victory over the White Sox on Tuesday, extending Boston’s current win streak to six games in a row.
In total, Boston is 24-3 over its last 27 games — with Boston both leading the American League in home runs (42) and all of MLB in team ERA over that stretch (2.62).
Boston is also 15-0 in its last 15 games against teams over .500.
“I think we’re at a point where it doesn’t matter who we’re facing,” Durbin said. “To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best, and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We’re going to go out there and try to execute.”
Just about every player on Boston’s once-laboring roster has pulled on the rope to drag the Red Sox out of its extended malaise. But Durbin’s midseason turnaround might be the ideal personification of what Boston’s about-face has been over the summer.
Even before Boston rose up from the bottom of the American League standings, Durbin was already shifting the narrative about his game — and his standing as a key cog on this revamped Red Sox lineup.
Over his last 57 games, Durbin is batting .308 with 10 home runs and 33 RBI, giving Boston a legitimate impact bat at a spot in the infield that was once looking like an offensive black hole earlier this year.
“It’s one thing to struggle,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said of Durbin. “It’s one thing to really, really struggle and do it in Boston where it’s on top of the team struggling. … You’ve got a lot of pressure on your shoulders.
“To continue to fight and be where he’s at now, where he’s just an integral part of the offense … For him to look up and see the kind of season he’s put together and know that it was creeping to June before he really got going, it’s really impressive.”
Durbin has been far from the only player in Boston’s lineup who has doled out plenty of damage over this recent scorching stretch.
For the first time since 2021, the Red Sox clubbed four home runs in back-to-back games between Sunday’s win over the Dodgers and Tuesday’s series-opening beatdown of the White Sox.
In total, every player in Boston’s starting lineup except catcher Connor Wong recorded a hit on Tuesday — with Wilyer Abreu blasting a pair of solo homers of his own and Jarren Duran adding a big fly in the first inning.
Six Red Sox players crossed the plate in both the first and sixth inning on Tuesday — with trade-deadline pickups in Adley Rutschman, Erik Miller, and Eli White getting a front-row seat to Boston’s rejuvenated offensive capabilities.
“Greg [Weissert] and [Justin] Slaten in the bullpen told me that the boys were banging and they weren’t lying,” Miller said of Boston’s lineup. “[That’s] the first thing they kind of told me, and right off the bat — obviously a grand slam. They looked over at me and were like, ‘Hey man, we told you so.’ It’s a bad day to be other teams’ pitchers. That’s what they said, and they weren’t wrong.”
Additions like Miller and Rutschman should only further bolster Boston’s roster for the final two months of the regular season, while other key cogs like Roman Anthony, Garrett Crochet, and Curtis Mead could stand as critical reinforcements if this team punches its ticket to the postseason.
It’d be a welcome sight to have bats like Anthony, Rutschman, and Mead in a Red Sox lineup that is already tormenting opposing pitchers.
But even now, a scrappy Red Sox roster — led by once-unheralded players like Durbin — is giving hope to a fanbase yearning for October baseball once again.
“They’re a grindy baseball team,” Tracy said. “They play it the right way. They play hard. They don’t take anything for granted. … I could probably say [I’m] more proud that part didn’t waver, even when we weren’t going as good yet.
“They still went out and played hard on defense. They still ran the bases hard, and they’ll continue to do that regardless of the score.”
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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