Yeah, you're right. It's 4 games so it can probably be chalked up to randomness. Weird, though. When you add on the 2023 numbers it gets extra weird.
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May: Red Sox discussion, observations and trend tracking...AKA It's not all about the Benjamins
- Thread starter YTF
- Start date
My guess is that it’s just a random thing and doesn’t really mean much of anything- but it’s still frustrating af. The team’s inability to play well at home is hard to figure out and somewhat abnormal, yet probably not really meaningful or predictive.
There probably is an answer of sorts lurking in how the teams of the last few years are constructed. For whatever reason they're just not 'built for Fenway', it seems.
Kinda depends on how you define "built for Fenway" because the home struggles have not exactly been consistent from season to season. I would think that if it was a specific personnel or roster construction issue, the problem would be consistent across seasons.
The offense seems to be the root of the problem at home this year but it wasn't last year.
Offense
2024 = .745 OPS, 4.88 R/G on the road; .693 OPS, 3.96 R/G at home
2023 = .700 OPS, 4.49 R/G on the road; .797 OPS, 5.04 R/G at home
Whereas the pitching/run prevention is better across the board this year but still better on the road (makes sense since Fenway is extremely hitter friendly).
Defense/Pitching
2024 = 4.54 runs allowed per game at home vs 3.11 runs allowed per game on the road
2023 = 5.11 runs allowed per game at home vs 4.47 runs allowed per game on the road
If you're scoring 5 runs a game, you should win games as long as your pitching is average (and 4.5 runs allowed per game is about average). When you're scoring 4 runs a game, you're not going to win a lot regardless of the ballpark.
IIRC, one of the things that was explicitly brought up by Cora (either last year, in the off-season, or during ST this year) was that the team wasn't "taking advantage" of Fenway in the offensive sense. I had thought that would result in seeing more wall-balls, or more line-drives and less HRs/flies to right. But not so far this year: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=b&team=BOS&year=2024#plats
So perhaps part of the initial Fenway game let-downs is trying to compensate/change an approach?
Looking quickly (rough numbers) at the hitters with significant ABs:
Duran +.130 OPS points at home.
Raffela +.150 away. (.491 OPS Fenway)
Raffy +.225 away. (.774 Fenway)
O'Neil +.070 away.
Wyler +.035 away.
Wong +.070 away.
Reese +.500 away. (.380 Fenway)
Refsnyder +.600 away. (.610 Fenway)
Hamilton +.600 away. (.512 Fenway)
Smith +.120 home.
Cooper + .200 home.
You may want to double-check my math there. Regardless, there's a general trend of hitting better away from Fenway. The swingiest guys (or the guys whose swings move them from "OK" to "useless" at Fenway) are a mix of RHH and LHH, rookies and vets.
It's just surprising to see so many hitters grossly penalized in a hitter's park they have every incentive to milk.
To sort of riff off this "building for Fenway" is (IMO) a kind of narrow band. The monster is said to favor RHH with good contact skills who can knock the ball off the monster. Meanwhile LHHs have to have plus power to get the ball out in Fenway's RF, otherwise they're better off hitting line drives as the RF has more ground to cover.
Bill Mueller would be the prototypical Fenway hitter everyone cites. Moderate power everywhere else in his career, then he gooses his doubles numbers with Boston to 45 (plus goosing homers to 19) on his way to a batting crown. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/muellbi02.shtml
So was Mueller a Fenway hitter? In 2003, only narrowly so. He OPS'd .969 at Fenway, and .903 away. Fenway certainly got him the batting crown as his BA was .040 higher at home (plus he walked more and struck out less.) But interestingly his slugging was pretty even, .549 at home to .530 away. And there, he traded 2B for HRs. Fenway: 31 2B, 6 HR. Away: 14 2B, 13 RHs.
And here's the thing I think gets missed in collective folk memory. . .(fun fact) he batted more often as a LHH. Consequently, his greatest number of doubles were against RHH at Fenway - 24 2Bs. And 19 of those 24 were to LF as a LHH.
So it's really not as simple as the old saw has it. You want guys who can reach out and use the monster, whether they're LHH or RHH.
FWIW, three of their four homestands have been preceeded by a day off. Those off-days followed flights back from Anaheim, Atlanta, and Tampa. The one homestand not preceded by an off-day started after a flight home from Cleveland. I'm not sure lack of rest is likely to be to blame.
Jetlag or not, a 2-15 record across any random 17 games at home is unacceptable, let alone games that set a tone for a homestand.
You're right, it's totally unacceptable. But I tend to view it through the lens of the 2022-2024 Red Sox being definitively mediocre teams, which makes their results tend to appear extremely random and weird and erratic, while constantly hovering around the .500 mark.
They are mediocre team doing mediocre things. Not sure it’s any more complicated than that. Some times things look good, some times they don’t:
There's a lot of truth to this, but they seem so listless in so many of the losses. You can find something good to take away from a hard fought loss, but it seems that so few of the losses fall into that category.
Somehow the Sox are only 9th in strength of schedule so far, but also 5th in SOS remaining. WTF?
They haven't yet played the Yankees (13 games), Phillies (3), or Dodgers (3) and those three have the best records in baseball. That might have something to do with it.
Sure but the real story is that there's a soft spot in MLB that the Sox won't ever get to take advantage of. Am guessing nobody else in the division will either. Anyway Brewers-Orioles weekend is not cool.
The schedule the rest of the way isn't really terrible.
They've played 15 of 50 games vs teams that are 5 or more over and played dreadfully against them (3-12) and 13 of 41 vs teams 5 or more under and played great against them (9-3). They are 15-11 vs all other teams with 71 remaining which I find more interesting than the first two.
I expect they'll play a bit better vs the iron (9 and 16 would be fine) and worse vs the dreck (17 and 11?). .500 vs the rest and they are right there.
They've played 15 of 50 games vs teams that are 5 or more over and played dreadfully against them (3-12) and 13 of 41 vs teams 5 or more under and played great against them (9-3). They are 15-11 vs all other teams with 71 remaining which I find more interesting than the first two.
I expect they'll play a bit better vs the iron (9 and 16 would be fine) and worse vs the dreck (17 and 11?). .500 vs the rest and they are right there.
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I must say they've surprised me thus far, of course because of the starting pitching. Though the last pass through seems to be regressing to the mean a bit. I'm actually enjoying the season because I expect nothing and like watching young fellas with promise (Duran and Abreu look like actual MLB regulars, Wong's surge is fun, Rafaela's D and speed exciting ..). Though I wouldn't be surprised if they go on a slide. The bottom half of the order is pretty dreadful. Pitching likely to further regress (while I'm an excited believer in B&B, the pitching dominance we saw for 5 weeks just isn't sustainable) ...That is, I still think the team finishes under .500 in the end. Would be fun if I'm wrong!