Friday, August 14, 2026 — six weeks left in the regular season.
The Athletics are 25 games under .500 and going nowhere. Their shortstop just did something no shortstop in the history of Major League Baseball has done.
111, and Counting
On Sunday at Fenway Park, Jacob Wilson played his 111th consecutive errorless game at shortstop, breaking a record that had stood since 2002. Mike Bordick set the previous mark of 110 with Baltimore, running it from April 11 to September 29 of that season.
Wilson’s last error came on July 6, 2025, in a 6-2 loss to the Giants. That was thirteen months ago.
The streak has since climbed to 113, though not without drama. On Tuesday night in West Sacramento, Wilson threw wide of Donovan Walton at second base in the eighth inning against Tampa Bay, and the official scorer initially ruled it an error — ending the run. After the game, the decision was changed: Yandy Díaz was credited with reaching on a fielder’s choice, and the streak survived.
Reasonable people can argue about that one. Scoring reversals that preserve records always invite scrutiny, and this one arrived within hours.
The Fine Print
There is a caveat worth stating plainly, because it matters to how the record should be read.
Bordick’s streak covered 544 consecutive errorless chances. Wilson’s stood at 323 when he passed him. Games-based streaks reward playing time distribution as much as reliability — Wilson has appeared in only 75 games this season after missing time with shoulder and thumb injuries, which means his streak has been stretched across two calendar years and fewer opportunities per game.
That doesn’t diminish it. Not making a single error over 113 games is genuinely extraordinary at a position where roughly 400 balls come at you awkwardly. But the chances gap is the honest asterisk, and Bordick’s version of the feat was denser.
Where It Came From
Wilson’s father, Jack Wilson, spent 12 years in the majors, also at shortstop. He raised his son on defense first — the hitting could come later, but you show up prepared to field every single day.
That upbringing shows in a specific way: Wilson isn’t a highlight-reel athlete making impossible plays. He is relentlessly, boringly correct. Footwork, positioning, throwing angles, decision-making. The record is the product of a player who almost never puts himself in a position where a mistake is possible.
His reaction after breaking it was characteristically flat. He called it a special day, then immediately pivoted to noting the A’s had finally won a series against a good opponent — their first in a long stretch.
The Player Behind the Glove
Wilson is 24, was drafted in the first round in 2023, and debuted in July 2024. He broke out as a rookie in 2025, made the All-Star team as the American League’s starting shortstop, and finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting — behind teammate Nick Kurtz.
He’s also part of the group the Athletics have committed to long term. Along with Brent Rooker, Lawrence Butler and Tyler Soderstrom, Wilson signed an extension as the franchise builds toward its planned move to Las Vegas. When the club briefly appeared willing to trade All-Star catcher Shea Langeliers last month, one of the arguments for doing so was that Langeliers, at 28, sat a full four or five years ahead of players like Wilson on the timeline.
This core is the plan. Wilson is the piece it’s built around.
The Award Case
No Athletics shortstop has won a Gold Glove since Alfredo Griffin in 1985 — a 41-year drought. Wilson has a real chance to end it, though the modern voting process weighs advanced defensive metrics heavily, and fielding percentage is no longer the currency it was in Griffin’s era.
Which raises the interesting tension here. Wilson just set a record built entirely on the oldest defensive statistic in baseball, in a season where the sport evaluates defense almost entirely by other means.
He probably doesn’t care. Neither, apparently, does his glove.
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