The Red Sox once dominated Fenway Park and had one of the greatest home-field advantages in all of sports, but that is no longer the case.
The club won 57 games at home in 2018. The 2013 edition was Boston Strong with 53 wins. The 2007 (51) and 2004 (55) teams also achieved over 50 wins. What they all have in common is that they won World Series titles.
But the home team hasn’t been particularly successful this season. Looking at just their 38-27 road record, you’d think the Red Sox would be in contention for first place. But thanks to a puzzlingly abysmal 29-32 home record, they’re outside the wild-card race.
If “miserable” sounds like a strong adjective, consider this: Of the 19 teams with the best records in baseball, the Red Sox are the only ones with a negative record at home. So what’s going on?
It’s not as if this is a new development. Since winning it all in 2018, the Red Sox have only two victories at unfriendly Fenway. Manager Alex Cora was concerned enough about the difficulties to address them before the home opener this April.
“To be honest, we’ve been terrible at home since 2019,” he told MassLive. “I think we were good in 2021. But we were bad in 2019. And we’ve been bad the last two years. To achieve our first goal, which is to make the playoffs, we need to play better.”
Last year, at least, we had lackluster crowds full of visiting fans. The Red Sox have won back paying customers this year with their aggressive play, but it’s not translating into real wins.
It doesn’t help that the club is only 6-14 in its series opener at Fenway. It’s hard to get a win at home when you start every series 0-1.
It also doesn’t help that they aren’t set up offensively to take advantage of their home-court advantage. While their left-handed lineup has done a lot of damage on the road, it has been less explosive at home.
The Red Sox have hit 50 percent more home runs away from Fenway (96) than at the old stadium (64). Curiously, the only right-hander in their lineup, Tyler O’Neill, has posted far better numbers away (.296-13-19-.974) than at home (.225-9-27-.768). Additionally, their second-highest away OPS belongs to right-hander Rob Refsnyder.
On the pitching side, the Red Sox are allowing about half a run more per game at home, with Nick Pivetta and Brayan Bello each showing significant fluctuations of about one run in their ERA.
Now it’s time to turn their fortunes around, as the third and final wildcard is still within reach. And if they win that, they’ll open the playoffs exactly where they want to be – on the road.
