Going into this Atlanta series, the vibes around the Sox were genuinely the best they've been all year. They had just swept the Royals in Kansas City, Jarren Duran was launching baseballs on back-to-back nights, and the bullpen was actually finishing games. For the first time in a long time, an off-day felt like a bummer instead of a small mercy.
The recap clip from the KC sweep that had everyone feeling themselves: a 2-run pump and a triple from Duran, plus a save for 44.
That momentum was real enough that Portnoy himself jumped in mid-game to call his shot, declaring the Sox were about to rip off 4 in a row. He's a self-admitted 162er, so when he sticks his neck out on a random Friday night, you know the energy is shifting.
Portnoy planting his flag in the middle innings: 4 in a row, locked in.
Then the wheels came off. Payton Tolle once again got Tolle'd by his own team, a 4-run cushion evaporated, and the whole thing ended with a walk-off grand slam down to the last strike. That's not a loss, that's a haunting. Six runs scored. Loss. The math doesn't even compute.
The final-strike walk-off slam that detonated the night in Atlanta.
Carrabis staring at the box score in real time, refusing to accept it.
I can’t believe the Red Sox scored six runs and lost. That doesn’t even make sense.
Portnoy, to his credit, came back to the timeline and ate it raw — quick update, no 4 in a row, they still stink, back to the 162er bit. Meanwhile WSD was over in his corner muttering that it was only a matter of time before the Sox touched up the Macdonald kid, calling him meat. Which is the most Red Sox arc imaginable: a week of genuine optimism, one Portnoy victory lap, and then a loss so dumb that everyone immediately remembers why they don't trust this team in the first place.
The walk-back tweet roughly 36 minutes after the prediction.
Quick update. The Red Sox did not win 4 in a row. They blew a 4 run lead. Brutal loss. They still stink. #162er.
WSD's postmortem on the Atlanta arm that gave up the lead.
It was only a matter of time before the sox touched up this Macdonald dude. This guy is meat
So where does that leave us? Right back where the 2026 Red Sox always seem to leave us: a team that's good enough to make you care and just unserious enough to punish you for doing it. Carrabis was tweeting earlier in the week that the Sox were finally deserving of some Horn, only for the Horn to literally be broken. That's the season in one bit. Good night. Bad ending. Try again Saturday.