Fenway Park was buzzing well before first pitch, with cameras catching Red Sox personnel working the scene outside the Green Monster gates as the golden hour light hit the ballpark. Whatever was said in that pregame chat, the vibe was already trending toward "very good."
Cameras caught a Red Sox-affiliated figure doing a pregame interview with NBC10 Boston outside Fenway's outfield doors.
Then the White Sox found out what pregame vibes turn into once the first pitch is thrown. Boston sent them into a spiral in the bottom of the 1st, and Dave Portnoy barely had time to type before the scoreboard changed on him mid-tweet.
If you tuned in 4 seconds late to the Sox game it’s already over! 😂 They are already up 5-0 in the 1st courtesy of a Caleb Durbin grand slam! See ya tomorrow!!!! #dirtywater #162er ##Durbinater *Duran homered before I could post this tweet! 6-0 now! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The centerpiece was Caleb Durbin's grand slam over the Green Monster, which an on-screen graphic marked as his 11th homer of the season. Durbin came to Boston this year in the offseason trade that sent Kyle Harrison, David Hamilton and Shane Drohan to Milwaukee, and he'd already been open about being flexible defensively for the Red Sox — third base, second, wherever they needed him. On this swing, all that mattered was the barrel finding the ball.
Durbin's grand slam clears the Green Monster as Fenway's scoreboard flips to Red Sox 5, White Sox 0, with a graphic confirming it as his 11th homer of the year.
Boston didn't stop there. Duran added a homer of his own before Portnoy's first tweet even finished posting, pushing it to 6-0, and streamers and reactors around the internet were losing their minds in real time watching the lead balloon inning by inning. It was less a baseball game at that point and more a highlight reel on a loop.
A livestream reactor's scoreboard overlay ticks from 6 to 7 as Wilyer Abreu adds another run for Boston.
Wilyer Abreu's contribution kept the barrage going, extending the lead further and turning an already lopsided game into a total laugher. For a Red Sox club looking to build momentum, an inning like this against a rebuilding White Sox team is exactly the kind of statement outing fans want to see more of down the stretch.