For the first time in four years, the Boston Red Sox will play postseason baseball.
The Red Sox punched their ticket in dramatic fashion Friday night when Ceddanne Rafaela launched a triple to dead center field in the ninth inning off Detroit Tigers reliever Tommy Kahnle. Romy Gonzalez scored from first base to give Boston a walk-off 4-3 victory, which secured its spot in the playoffs.
Friday’s dramatic win helped end a three-year playoff drought for the franchise, which last made the postseason in 2021. That run included a win in the AL Wild Card Game over the Yankees and a 3-1 series win over the Rays in the American League Division Series. The Red Sox jumped out to a 2-1 series lead over the Astros in the American League Championship Series but lost three straight games to lose the series in six games. The Astros outscored the Red Sox 23-3 over those final three games.
The Red Sox will look considerably different this postseason, as Garrett Whitlock is the only member of the active roster who played in that ALCS against Houston. (Tanner Houck, who made five appearances that postseason, remains on the Boston roster but went on the IL in May.) The 2021 season was manager Alex Cora’s first season back with the Red Sox after he served his season-long suspension from MLB in 2020.
Though the ultimate story of the 2025 Red Sox will depend on what happens in the playoffs, making the playoffs at all was widely considered an impossibility as late as June, when the Red Sox traded superstar third baseman Rafael Devers and flip-flopped around the .500 mark for the entire month.
They entered June in fourth place, 8.5 games out of first place in the AL East and 3.5 games out of a wild-card spot, and they finished the month in almost the same spot: seven games back in the East, three games out of the wild card.
Yet a season-long 10-game winning streak before the All-Star break put the team above .500 for good. And though they emerged from that break to go 2-5, they’d win their next four series to firmly establish their place in the postseason picture.
That footing was once again questioned in early September, when rookie sensation Roman Anthony suffered an oblique strain that ended his regular season and could keep him out of the entire postseason. A 5-8 stretch followed the Anthony injury but the Red Sox, at risk of falling out of the playoff picture, won consecutive road series in Tampa and Toronto to reestablish their spot, then punched their postseason ticket with their MLB-leading 10th walk-off win on Friday night.
The Red Sox became the fourth team in the American League (and third in the AL East) to clinch a playoff spot, joining the Blue Jays, Mariners and Yankees. Their opponent is yet to be determined, but they’re almost certain to begin their postseason journey on the road for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series on Tuesday, Sept. 30.
They could be heading to New York, Detroit, Toronto or Cleveland, depending on how the weekend’s games play out across the league.
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