BOSTON — For the record, nobody pushed a microphone in front of Caleb Durbin Wednesday afternoon at Fenway Park and breathlessly asked the Boston Red Sox third baseman, “Hey, does it feel like the playoffs around here or what!?”It was Durbin’s decision to ease on down that road. The Red Sox had just posted a 6-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in the opener of a day-night doubleheader, extending their winning streak to 15 games, tying the club record set by the Ted Williams-led 1946 Red Sox. This year’s streak disappeared with the setting sun, the Orioles taking the nightcap 5-1, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First, Durbin.Asked to explain a record-challenging winning streak by a club that was 11 games under .500 (37-48) when it began, Durbin said, “You don’t really go into it thinking about it. It’s just you keep stacking one win over another, and then you get close . . . and then once you get within three or four they start to feel like playoff games because you want to get there, which is also a great experience.”Had any kind of Red Sox-themed playoff discussion taken place as recently as three weeks ago, Boston fans would be summoning their best Jim Mora voice as though competing in a soundalike contest at Game On! “Playoffs?! Don’t talk about — playoffs?! You kidding me? Playoffs?!”But a lot has happened during those three weeks. At the close of business Wednesday night the Red Sox were 52-49 and in possession of one of those if-the-season-were-to-end-today wild-card spots, which seems unfathomable considering the soft underbelly of their offense for much of this season. The Sox are also just seven games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East; as recently as June 24 they were 15 1/2 games out.Now comes the real challenge. The Red Sox do not need another record-tying winning streak to make it to the postseason, but they do need to win. They need to win series. They need the occasional four-in-a-row burst. And ownership needs to encourage chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to go find an accomplished right-handed batter or two who can bring much-needed thump to the lineup.If the streaking Red Sox return to being the bleeping Red Sox, that 15-game streak will wind up being nothing more than a summertime novelty, an entertaining diversion for a few weeks while waiting for the defending AFC champion New England Patriots to begin training camp. To illustrate the point, consider these three teams from seasons past:• The 1916 New York Giants lost 13 of their first 15 games and then won 17 games in a row. In September, they assembled a 26-game winning streak that remains an MLB record. Alas, the Giants finished in fourth place in the National League.• In that same 1916 season, the St. Louis Browns were 37-49 when they put together a 14-game winning streak. They finished fifth in the American League.• And then, as the 20th century was nearing an end, the 1999 San Diego Padres were 25-39 when they won 14 straight games. They nonetheless wound up 74-88 and in fourth place in the National League West.Those streaks are largely forgotten because the Giants, Browns and Padres failed to build on them.Red Sox fans packed Fenway for Wednesday’s nightcap — 38,005, the 12th sellout of the season — to see if the streak might reach a record-breaking 16 games. One club official with whom I spoke referred to the gathering as an “old-fashioned sellout,” the kind in which there are very few no-shows. Not only did my own eyeball test back up that testimony, but also I did a pregame meandering of the online secondary market and spied a bleacher seat with an asking price of $441. Three weeks ago that seat would have fetched a 1946 price.Everyone at Fenway Park was fired up after the Red Sox ran their winning streak to 15 games. (Jaiden Tripi / Getty Images)There was also lots of good karma going on. Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, now retired from his stellar career as a NESN analyst and living in California, just happened to be in the house. While offering that the winning streak had nothing to do with his appearance, Eck added, “But what a great thing is that!?”Also in attendance was Janet Marie Smith, the architect whose many renovations of Fenway Park during the reign of the late president/CEO Larry Lucchino likely saved the old ballpark. It was also just a coincidence that Richard Johnson, the longtime curator of The Sports Museum of New England who retired last month, was on hand. Retired or not, Johnson would have been hounding the Red Sox for caps, bats and baseballs for The Sports Museum’s display cases had the team extended the streak to 16 games.And check this out: For only the second time in his life, Hall of Fame play-by-play radio broadcaster Joe Castiglione, now retired save for the occasional guest gig, watched a Red Sox game from the stands. (Having been behind the mic for nearly 7,000 games over 43 years, there was never time for busman’s holidays.)Asked to compare Boston’s 15-game winning streak with the 1988 “Morgan Magic” Red Sox who won 12 in a row and 19 of 20, Castiglione told me, “Oh, there’s no comparison. Those ’88 Red Sox had Jim Rice and Wade Boggs, who are in the Hall of Fame, and they had Roger Clemens and Dwight Evans, who should be in the Hall of Fame. This (2026) team doesn’t have those players, but they’ve been so much fun. It’s been a thrill to watch what they’ve done.”Castiglione is correct about the talent disparity. But the 1988 “Morgan Magic” Red Sox are remembered because they finished first in the AL East, even if they were swept in the ALCS by Eck’s Oakland A’s. Had the ’88 Red Sox slumped a little and finished in second or third place in the division, “Morgan Magic” would largely be forgotten by now.How the 2026 Red Sox will be remembered has less to do with what they’ve already accomplished and more about how they handle challenges to come.