Why are the Red Sox struggling against the AL East this year?

[Pedroia's Itchy Nose]

It's clear that the Red Sox are going to have a very difficult time succeeding this year if they can't figure out how to perform better against the AL East. What I'm curious about is why the Sox are having such a difficult time beating the other AL East teams. Last year the Sox won at a .539 clip against the AL East and a .593 clip against everyone else. This year, the Red Sox are absolutely floundering against the AL East to the tune of .300 ball but are scalding the rest of baseball with a .655 percentage.

Obviously the AL East is an incredibly strong division this year, perhaps historically good. But that doesn't explain the difference, as the other AL East teams (except the Yankees) aren't crushing non-AL East teams like the Sox are. The Yankees are winning against non-AL-East teams at a .694 clip, but that's not so different from their overall record. Tampa, Toronto, and Baltimore are all playing in the mid .500's against non-AL East teams (.537/.576/.545 respectively).

If Tampa and Toronto were really that much better than the Red Sox you'd expect them to be beating the other teams at a better rate than the Red Sox.

It's not because of the teams the Red Sox have played either. They've had plenty of series against the competitive teams in other divisons -- the Twins, Guardians, Astros, Mariners, Cardinals, and Braves. The only good team that they haven't yet faced is the Brewers.

Tampa has played 6 series against non-AL East contenders, Baltimore has played 7, Toronto has played 7, New York has played 5, and Boston has played 7. It's not a strength of schedule issue.

Anyone have any good theories as to what is going on here? Injuries clearly have played a roll in the most recent stretch of futility vs the AL East, but the Roster was healthy at the start of the season and still struggled against AL East competition.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

Sox have been much better against LH pitchers this year, not a surprise given that their best hitters are RH. How many good LH starters are there in the division? Cortes and Montgomery, who they seem to have done ok against, and McClanahan?

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Anyone have any good theories as to what is going on here? Injuries clearly have played a roll in the most recent stretch of futility vs the AL East, but the Roster was healthy at the start of the season and still struggled against AL East competition.

I think some of it is plain bad timing. The roster may have been largely healthy in April but they were simply not hitting against anyone. In April (plus 5/1 vs BAL) they scored 47 runs in 16 games against the AL East. Not going to win many, regardless of who's in the other dugout, when averaging just under 3 runs a game.

The more recent stretch probably can be attributed to injury, particularly the pitching injuries. Counting today, the Sox have played 20 of their last 23 against the AL East, and the following have accounted for more than half the starts: Brayan Bello (3), Connor Seabold (3), Josh Winckowski (2), Kutter Crawford (3), and Austin Davis (1). It's hard to win games with a AAA rotation regardless of opponent. When all those games are against quality lineups like the AL East has, it's a steep uphill battle from the jump.

Gotta play the schedule you're given though, so can't really play what-if. Sometimes, it's just not your year no matter what you do to try to be ready for it.

 

[Rovin Romine]

I think some of it is plain bad timing. The roster may have been largely healthy in April but they were simply not hitting against anyone. In April (plus 5/1 vs BAL) they scored 47 runs in 16 games against the AL East. Not going to win many, regardless of who's in the other dugout, when averaging just under 3 runs a game.

The more recent stretch probably can be attributed to injury, particularly the pitching injuries. Counting today, the Sox have played 20 of their last 23 against the AL East, and the following have accounted for more than half the starts: Brayan Bello (3), Connor Seabold (3), Josh Winckowski (2), Kutter Crawford (3), and Austin Davis (1). It's hard to win games with a AAA rotation regardless of opponent. When all those games are against quality lineups like the AL East has, it's a steep uphill battle from the jump.

Gotta play the schedule you're given though, so can't really play what-if. Sometimes, it's just not your year no matter what you do to try to be ready for it.

I'd agree, but think it almost completely boils down to bad timing (thusfar) in relation to individual production/injuries. Its important to remember that when Story was cold, the Sox lineup was incredibly short. Against superior pitching, that's probably going to show up as a greater deficency in runs scored.

They really started winning on 5/10, and got cool 6/27. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2022-schedule-scores.shtml There were some credible teams in that stretch. It also correlates with Story breaking out: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=storytr01&t=b&year=2022 Plus a JD hot stretch: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=martijd02&t=b&year=2022

Maybe some of the AL East teams know how to pitch to the Sox' batters weaknesses. . .but if so, that should be obvious and the Sox should be sitting on those pitches. So it seems more likely that the Sox simply have a boom or bust offense based on hits (as they dd for most of last year, pre-Schwarber). They don't walk. When they're hitting, wins come in bunches. When not, they're more exposed (relatively) than their competitors.

 

[Petagine in a Bottle]

They are 32-40 against RH, 16-7 vs LH. Devers crushes righties, the rest of their top hitters don’t.


Story 849 vs LH, 668 vs RH
JD 1065 vs LH, 789 vs RH
X 1025 vs LH, 781 vs RH
Verdugo 737 vs LH, 654 vs RH
Vaz 819 vs LH, 749 vs RH

Devers 1031 vs RH, 850 vs LH

 

[Harry Hooper]

It's timing, but I think it's maybe more a case of essentially the only time when the offense had 5+ guys get hot at the same time just happened to be the stretch of the schedule vs. the weaker teams. So they thrived then. There might be another stretch coming up where more than half the lineup is hitting at the same time, but it will be short-lived and fool's gold. The 2022 offense overall is not good enough without additions.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Last year AL east had a 52.7% winning %. 44 games over .500.
Everyone else: 49.5%

This year:
Al East: 55.9% winning %. 55 games over .500. On pace to finish 96 games over .500.
Everyone else: 48.8%.

My math could be wrong.

It doesn't explain all of it, but it's definitely some.

edit: Unless I'm doing something wrong, the average AL east team will finish with 11.5 more wins on average than everyone else.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

A 55.9% winning % works out to 90-72 or 91-71. Crazy.

 

[Traut]

It's timing, but I think it's maybe more a case of essentially the only time when the offense had 5+ guys get hot at the same time just happened to be the stretch of the schedule vs. the weaker teams. So they thrived then. There might be another stretch coming up where more than half the lineup is hitting at the same time, but it will be short-lived and fool's gold. The 2022 offense overall is not good enough without additions.

Yes and what we are witnessing and are about to witness even more of is regression to the mean. By the end of the season, it's a safe bet that they will suck equally against teams from every division.