The Red Sox won a series in Houston against the red-hot Astros this week, the latest twist in what has been a tremendously uneven season for Boston.
The three-game set at Minute Maid Park encapsulated much of what the Red Sox have gone through over the past month — for better and for worse. Monday’s game featured a script all too familiar for the Red Sox. Home runs from Jarren Duran and Masataka Yoshida helped stake a 4-2 lead heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, but that lead then slowly crumbled, culminating in a walk-off home run by Yainer Diaz surrendered by closer Kenley Jansen. It was a rare misstep for Jansen, who was roughly flawless in the first half of the season before scuffling in July but had seemed to regain his form in August before Diaz teed off on Monday.
While Jansen hasn’t generally been at the center of Boston’s recent barrage of blown leads, Monday’s conclusion marked yet another troubling sequence for a bullpen that has been stunningly bad since the All-Star break. From the start of the second half through Monday’s game, Boston relievers combined for an MLB-worst 6.93 ERA, more than a full run worse than the 29th-ranked White Sox (5.88) over that span.
It hasn’t just been the bullpen, either, as a rotation that excelled earlier in the season has posted a 5.00 ERA since the break, good for 24th in MLB. With one of baseball’s best offenses — one that has only gotten better as the year has gone on — Boston has been able to overcome a fair number of poor pitching performances to avoid substantial losing skids. But the state of the staff has made the final handful of frames particularly precarious recently.
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That context set the stage for a game Tuesday that seemed to be teetering toward a similarly frustrating result. A back-and-forth affair sent a tie game into the sixth inning, presenting another delicate situation for which the Red Sox bullpen was responsible. But this time, four relievers combined for four scoreless frames, and Duran delivered a go-ahead solo homer in the eighth that held for the victory and tied the series.
Wednesday’s rubber match hardly seemed to favor the Red Sox on paper, with Boston’s No. 5 starter, Cooper Criswell, getting the start opposite a future Hall of Famer in Justin Verlander returning from the IL. But after allowing a lead-off home run to Alex Bregman, Criswell settled in, followed by six Red Sox relievers — none of whom was Kenley Jansen — who kept Houston scoreless for the remainder of the game. That this beleaguered unit was able to duck and dodge its way through Houston’s lineup to secure a series victory was impressive on its own and especially encouraging considering its recent form.
The Astros had won 10 of 11 — including a resounding sweep at Fenway Park a week prior — entering their series this week, hardly an easy assignment for a Red Sox team in search of some positive momentum. But Boston’s bold response in Games 2 and 3 after Monday’s heartbreak came as less of a surprise from another perspective: The Red Sox have been excellent on the road this season. Only the Yankees (41) have more wins away from home than Boston (38) this year, with a .585 road winning percentage that is currently the third-best by a Red Sox team this century, behind only the 2002 and 2018 squads.
The flip side, of course, has been an oddly poor showing at the team’s historic home venue, hence the 6.5-game gap between the Red Sox and their chief rivals in the Bronx. Boston’s 29-32 mark at Fenway is tied with Pittsburgh for the sixth-worst home record in baseball.
So what gives? Is this team actually any good? Beyond the unusual home/road splits, that question has been particularly difficult to answer because of Boston’s inability to sync up its best showings on the mound with its most productive stretches on offense. Take a look at where Boston has ranked league-wide in ERA and wRC+ by month:
March/April: 2.62 ERA (1st); 102 wRC+ (13th)
May: 4.12 ERA (17th); 85 wRC+ (23rd)
June: 4.35 ERA (21st); 120 wRC+ (7th)
July: 4.91 ERA (23rd); 128 wRC+ (3rd)
August: 5.35 ERA (28th); 114 wRC+ (9th)
As the arms have faded, the offense has found its stride. And with the imbalanced nature of the roster has come a rather volatile stretch of results over the course of the summer. After seeming magnetically tethered to .500 for much of May and into June, Boston started to surge as the weather — and bats — warmed up. The Sox won 10 of their last 13 games before the All-Star break to raise their record to a season-best 11 games above .500. Not only did they hold a two-game lead over Kansas City for the third AL wild-card spot, but at that point they were also just 4.5 games behind Baltimore in the AL East. Vibes were good, and spirits were high.
Then the second half began with a miserable road trip that included getting swept at Dodger Stadium and losing a series at Coors Field in which the Red Sox allowed 20 runs in the finale. They then returned home and immediately lost a series to the Yankees, which dropped the Red Sox out of playoff position, where they have remained while the Royals and Twins have played some of their best baseball in August.
Now, with 36 games to go — well, 35 plus a suspended game vs. Toronto to be completed next week — the Red Sox occupy a unique position in the AL postseason picture as the field of wild-card candidates is slowly whittled down. Since mid-June, Boston’s playoff odds haven’t dipped below 25% but haven’t climbed above 53%, either; they currently sit at roughly 40%, according to FanGraphs. With Texas disappointing, Toronto and Tampa Bay selling at the trade deadline and Seattle plummeting dramatically in recent weeks, Boston has emerged as the most likely alternative to jump back into postseason position should the likes of Kansas City or Minnesota falter down the stretch.
But for the Red Sox, the next five weeks cannot solely be about scoreboard-watching and hoping the teams ahead of them struggle. If Boston is to avoid missing the postseason for a third consecutive year — something that hasn’t happened for this franchise since 2012 — it must elevate its own performance and demonstrate a more consistent marriage between run production and run prevention than it has at any point this season.
This week’s showing in Houston was a promising step in the right direction, but there’s more work to be done. A tough test awaits this weekend, as the formidable Diamondbacks make their first trip to Fenway Park since 2016, with both teams eager to gain ground in the standings as October approaches.
