The Red Sox won 92 games last season and advanced to the ALCS. They had a lot of turnover in the offseason, losing freehand Eduardo Rodriguez, Kyle Schwarber and Hunter Renfroe, but Boston also added Michael Wacha and Rich Hill to the rotation and got Jackie Bradley Jr. to return to their outfield. and signed Trevor Story to make a lineup that had the fourth-most runs in the American League last year even more dangerous.
With $205 million in wages, the Sox were a safe contender even in the struggling American League East. Or, as it turns out, not so sure.
According to Baseball Reference, Boston’s Chances for the playoffs — this year’s extended playoffs, now with three wild cards — currently sit at 12.6 percent. That’s on par with the widely accepted Rockies with no chance (12.5 percent) and well below the no-even-trying A (21.4 percent).
Why is it so bad even though it’s so early, 31 games in a 162-game season? That’s the depth of the hole Boston dug. The odds aren’t just based on the current record, either: The Orioles, currently two games ahead of the Red Sox, still have a perhaps too high 0.2 percent chance of October baseball. Boston still has a good team, but it will be almost impossible for the Red Sox to recover from their terrible start.
Actually not a horrendous start. Boston came out of goal 6-5, losing two of three at Yankee Stadium but then winning a series in Detroit and sharing a four-game set with the Twins. It’s all ok. The wheels have completely fallen off since beating the Blue Jays 2-1 at Fenway on April 19 to break .500 for the first and only time this season (and share first place). Boston hasn’t been on a five-game losing streak, but they haven’t won a straight game since the middle games of this Twins series, either.
Orlando Arcia’s walk-off homer in Atlanta on Wednesday night dropped the Sox to 5-15 over the past three weeks, and their 11-20 overall record means Boston has to play at a 97-win pace to have 90 wins rest of the season. Hardly impossible, but the level of difficulty when your unbalanced schedule includes New York, Tampa Bay, and Toronto…well, games against the Orioles don’t make up for it.
Story finally hit his first homer in a Red Sox uniform on Wednesday, which puts him at .206/.281/.304 with 37 strikeouts in 102 at-bats. You’d think that if you left Coors Field the easiest adjustment would be to head to the Fenway Park pinball machine, but Story is also 8-for-45 at home with 21 K’s.
For his career, Story is a .299/.365/.592 hitter at home and .241/.311/.438 at home. DJ LeMahieu has shown with the Yankees that it’s possible not to be a Coors creation, and his career splits are just as drastic, even after four years out of Colorado – albeit in the also hitter-friendly “Little League ballpark‘ in the Bronx.
Story isn’t the first free agent — particularly the first late-signing free agent — to get off to a rocky start with his new club. So what’s the excuse for…
- C Christian Vazquez: .215/.274/.292, 1 HR
- 1B Bobby Dalbec: .148/.231/.222, 1HR
- LF Alex Verdugo: .216/.260/.333, 3 HR
- CF Enrique Hernández: .161/.232/.259, 1 HR
- RF Jackie Bradley Jr.: .198/.270/.286, 0 HR
Boston has gone from fourth-most runs in the American League to fourth-least, and with both Hill and Wacha injured, pitching is pretty abysmal, serving 34 homers at 3.4 walks per nine innings.
And while some of the struggling Sox will pick things up, Boston-wearing Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers won’t be quite as hot all year. What they will be is abysmal because while it may be early days, Boston being already 11 games behind first place and 5.5 games shy of the playoffs means it’s going to be a long summer for too many good ones Catching up with teams that are already too far out of reach.
