Durbin's 13th-Inning Single Ends a 23-Run Thriller for Boston
Caleb Durbin singled to center in the 13th inning to score Sogard and give Boston a 12-11 walk-off win over Chicago on August 6. The two teams combined for 23 runs, swapped the lead four times in extra innings, and needed 13 frames to settle a game that looked like a blowout before the third inning was even over.
Chicago came out swinging. Chase Meidroth launched a 409-foot homer to left center in the third, plating B. Montgomery for a 2-0 lead, and then C. Montgomery's single to center turned into a two-run gift when a throwing error by center fielder Rafaela allowed Vargas and Grichuk to score — suddenly CHW 4, BOS 0. Boston answered immediately: Connor Wong hit a two-run shot to left (387 feet) to cut it to 4-2, but the White Sox pushed it back to 5-2 in the fourth on an Antonacci double. That's when Boston's offense woke up for real. Seigler's two-run double to right in the fourth scored Monasterio and Yoshida to tie it at 5-5, and the game was officially on.
Chicago grabbed the lead back in the fifth when an infield single and a throwing error by pitcher Slaten let two runs score, making it 7-5. Boston chipped away — Yoshida doubled in Durbin in the sixth, and then, with the White Sox still leading 7-6 heading to the ninth, Abreu singled to center to score White and tie it at 7-7. That play was the hinge of the entire game: Boston's win probability swung from 19% to 58% on that single, a 39-point shift that reframed everything. What looked like a comfortable Chicago road win had become Boston's game to lose. Meidroth answered with his second homer of the night in the 10th — a 362-foot shot to left that put Chicago back up 9-7 — but Boston tied it again at 9-9 on a Seigler sacrifice fly. The pattern repeated in the 11th (both teams scored on sac flies, 10-10) and the 12th (Antonacci singled in a run for 11-10, Rogers answered with a sac fly to tie it at 11-11).
The story of the night, beyond the sheer volume of scoring, appears to be the contrast between Meidroth's individual brilliance and Boston's collective resilience. Meidroth finished 3-for-5 with 2 HR and 4 RBI — a performance that would win most games — and yet it wasn't enough. Durbin's walk-off single in the 13th was his third hit of the night (3-for-6, 2 R), and it capped a Boston comeback that required erasing a four-run deficit, surviving multiple extra-inning lead changes, and getting contributions up and down the lineup. Luis Castillo (CHW) allowed 5 earned runs in 4.0 innings and looks like the reason Chicago couldn't put this away early; Boston's bullpen, by contrast, appears to have held things together long enough for the offense to do its work.