Caleb Durbin's walk-off sends Red Sox win streak to eight

The Red Sox found five different ways to blow a lead against the White Sox on Thursday night and still won the game. Boston trailed in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th innings before Caleb Durbin ended it with a walk-off single in the 13th, capping a 12-11 marathon that pushed the win streak to 8 straight.

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BALL GAME. CALEB DURBIN END THE GAME OF THE YEAR

Aroldis Chapman coughed up a two-run homer that briefly put Chicago up 9-7, and it looked like the kind of blown save that sinks a night. Instead it was just another twist in a game that had already flipped 12 times.

Dave Portnoy laid out the entire lead-change chaos himself: 4-0 White Sox, tied at 5, back ahead 7-5, tied at 7, 9-7 White Sox, tied at 9, 10-9 White Sox, tied at 10, 11-10 White Sox, tied at 11, and finally 12-11 Red Sox. That's the kind of game that gets a nickname, and Barstool is already calling it the Game of the Year.

Dave Portnoy

@stoolpresidente

THE RED SOX MAY NEVER LOSE AGAIN! 8 straight! #162er #dirtywater 4-0 white sox 4-2 white sox 5-2 white sox 5-5 tie 7-5 white sox 7-7 tie 9-7 white sox 9-9 tie 10-9 white sox 10-10 tie 11-10 white sox 11-11 tie 12-11 RED SOX

This isn't just a hot week. Boston has gone 26-3 since July 3 -- only the fourth team in 70 years to post that kind of stretch over a 29-game span, and the first since Cleveland's 2017 juggernaut. The streak has run through sweeps of division leaders Tampa Bay and the Dodgers, so this isn't feasting on scrubs. Brandon Walker put words to what everyone's feeling watching it unfold.

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Brandon Walker breaking down the phases of the run the Boston Red Sox have been on: “At first it was interesting. Then it became cute. Then it became ‘Huh? Really?’ Then it became awesome. Is it now historic?”

Steven Cheah is already framing it as an AL East race, and Barstool Gambling has the Red Sox at +1200 to win the World Series on DraftKings -- long odds, but not laughable ones for a team that just outlasted a division leader in a 4-hour, 23-minute slugfest. Not everyone's buying the hype just yet; Marty Mush's take that Boston is peaking too early and due to fizzle is the obvious counterpoint to all the buzz.

Merch always follows momentum in Barstool world, and this streak has its own artifact now: the Durbinator shirt. Portnoy demanded it get posted to the main Barstool Store account, and by evening it was live.

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THE DURBINATOR Snag yours in the @barstoolstore: t.co/WNgWjBS6H5

Whether the Red Sox are a genuine World Series contender or just riding an unsustainable heater is still an open question. But 8 straight, a 26-3 stretch since July, and a walk-off that took 13 innings to finish is the kind of run that forces people to at least ask.