The Boston Red Sox capped their incredible in-season turnaround with a playoff spot.
Boston clinched a wild-card seed Sunday with the Atlanta Braves' win over the Houston Astros. The Red Sox will play October baseball in consecutive seasons for the first time since reaching the postseason in three straight years from 2016-18.
It's a shocking accomplishment for a team that was in disarray just months ago. On April 26, the Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora and five members of his coaching staff after opening the season 11-17. Cora was replaced by Triple-A skipper Chad Tracy, who remains the Red Sox interim manager.
On June 24, Boston sat in last place in the AL East with a 32-46 record. The team responded by winning 20 of its next 22 games to launch back into the postseason race. The Red Sox are 74-55 (.574) under Tracy.
MLB teams to reach the postseason after being 14 games under .500 at some point in the season:
— Gabrielle Starr (@gfstarr1) September 20, 2026
1914 Boston Braves
1974 Pittsburgh Pirates
2005 Houston Astros
2026 Red Sox
FanGraphs gave Boston a season-low 8.4% chance of reaching the postseason on June 22.
Members of the Red Sox celebrated reaching the playoffs at Tropicana Field despite losing 5-1 in the final game of their series with the Tampa Bay Rays.
The full speech from Willson Contreras to the team. Electric stuff. Clearly the guy who leads this entire group.
— Tyler Milliken (@tylermilliken_) September 20, 2026
Of course he had to throw a trash barrel lol. pic.twitter.com/pF1S0TpPyz
With six games remaining in their regular season, the Red Sox are likely settled into the second wild-card spot and are expected to travel to New York to face the Yankees in the Bronx. The Yankees eliminated Boston in the wild-card series last year.
The Red Sox went 6-7 against New York this season, going 2-4 at Yankee Stadium.
Boston hasn't won a playoff series since 2021, when it advanced to the ALCS.
