The Boston Red Sox‘ record-tying win streak ended Wednesday night at Fenway Park, and so did the current major league stint for the club’s No. 25-ranked prospect, left-hander Eduardo Rivera.
Boston optioned Rivera to Triple-A Worcester after a 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the nightcap of a doubleheader, a defeat that snapped the club’s 15-game winning streak one game after it had tied the franchise record set in 1946, according to a report from NBC Boston.
Fellow left-hander Alec Gamboa, added as the 27th man for the second game of Wednesday’s twin bill, was retained on the 26-man roster. The corresponding move keeps Gamboa on Boston’s active roster while Rivera heads back to the minors for further seasoning, the Red Sox confirmed in a roster announcement Wednesday.
The Red Sox are now 52-49 on the season, two games ahead of the Seattle Mariners in American League Wild Card race despite the split doubleheader. Boston had taken Game 1 earlier in the day behind a strong outing from Jake Bennett, pushing the streak to 15 and matching the mark set by the Ted Williams-led 1946 club, before the nightcap unraveled as quickly as it began.
Eduardo Rivera’s Rough Night
Rivera lasted only two outs into the first inning. The 23-year-old failed to find the strike zone, needing 41 pitches â just 22 for strikes â before Boston pulled him with the Orioles suddenly up 4-0. Brayan Bello came on in relief and shut Baltimore down for 5 1/3 scoreless innings, but the Red Sox could only scratch back a single run, an RBI single from Masataka Yoshida that scored Willson Contreras in the fourth.
It marked a jarring reversal for Rivera, who entered the day as one of the most encouraging stories in Boston’s system. Recalled from Worcester on July 11, the 6-foot-7 Puerto Rico native had gone 7-2 with a 2.44 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP and 62 strikeouts across 48 innings between Worcester and Double-A Portland this season, according to an MLB.com report. Over his first three big league outings, he allowed three runs in 9 1/3 innings for a 2.89 ERA. But that ERA ballooned to 6.30 after Wednesday’s disaster.
Alec Gamboa Sticks Around Boston’s Bullpen
Gamboa’s path back to the majors this season has been an up-and-down one. The 29-year-old lefty was optioned to Triple-A on July 6 after allowing two earned runs in 3.1 innings across two relief outings, a move that cleared a roster spot for Patrick Sandoval’s return from the injured list, according to a RotoWire staff report.
Gamboa answered that demotion with a strong showing in Worcester, posting a 3.21 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP and a 40-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 42 innings, numbers that earned him another look and, eventually, Wednesday’s 27th-man call for the doubleheader. He pitched one inning in the nightcap, getting the Orioles in order with one strikeout.
After an off-day Thursday, the Red Sox head into Toronto where they try to get back on the winning track against the faltering Blue Jays, losers of seven games in their last eight. Left-hander Patrick Sandoval, making just his third start after missing all of 2025 and the first three months of 2026, takes the mound against to open the road series on Friday with rookie Trey Yesavage starting for the Blue Jays, in a game that will carried nationally by Apple TV.
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