RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesBOSTON — It was only last month that the Toronto Blue Jays last visited Fenway Park, but in some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago.
In mid-June, the defending American League champions came to town and mopped the floor with the Red Sox with a three-game sweep. The series finale, a 4-3 loss to Toronto, featured a brutal inning when, after rallying to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth on back-to-back homers, the Red Sox gave back the lead in the top of the ninth when a botched foul popup gave way to a game-winning double.
At the time, the futility came to symbolize the team’s struggles at home. The boos rained down on the Sox that afternoon as they concluded yet another dispiriting homestand.
How things have changed.
On Sunday, the Red Sox mixed-and-matched five different pitchers and came within an out of a shutout victory, settling for a convincing 6-1 win over the same Jays team.
This victory closed out an 8-2 homestand in which the Red Sox beat three different AL East rivals, sweeping Tampa Bay before taking two-of-three from both Baltimore and Toronto.
“We talked about it before the break and we knew it was going to be a long homestand,” said interim manager Chad Tracy, “a lot of games in a place where we hadn’t done as well as we needed to.”
Name the stark contrast — night and day, black and white, up and down — and it applies to the turnaround at Fenway.
“It was pretty obvious that earlier in the year that we struggled at home,” said Jarren Duran, who collected three hits, one of them a two-run single in the fourth inning. “But it’s good to play good at home and get the fans behind us and see this place packed again.”
When the Red Sox began their recent 15-game homestand, the victories first came on the road — three each in Anaheim, Chicago and New York. But even before that magical run began, they enjoyed a 5-2 homestand that included a four-game sweep of the Yankees, even if it concluded with two straight losses to Washington.
More recently, the Sox came out of the break intent on maintaining the momentum they had crafted away from home. And now, it’s trickled over to home.
“I think we’re just settling into ourselves,” explained Duran. “Early on, we were still trying to find our identity. I feel like we’re just now coming into what we knew we could be. It’s showing and the boys have bought in since Day 1. It’s just baseball and we were going through that grind and we’re starting to roll and it’s awesome to see.”
Historically, the Red Sox have bludgeoned teams at home, walloping balls off — and over — the Wall in left, wearing down opposing pitching staffs.
This recent run, however, has been very different in terms of the team’s approach. Rather than swinging for the fences, the lineup has played more for the moment. Sunday, three sacrifice bunts — the most in a single game for the Sox since the 2021 season - led to five of the team’s six runs.
Bunting has largely gone out of fashion in the game ever since analytics began valuing the 27 outs and determined that bunting was not an efficient use of that allotment.
Not long ago, the idea of a Red Sox team putting down three sacrifice bunts in the same game would have been laughable and incited calls for drug testing of the manager.
But whatever works...
“Two of those, they did on their own,” revealed Tracy of the sudden proliferation of bunts. “There was one I called and two of those were players that now see and recognize situations where (a bunt) can move guys up and I’m going to go ahead and get the job done. So I think when you start to see like that happen, they’re clicking on that and they recognize what needs to be done.”
Tracy credited the team’s pitching staff indirectly for the trend. His players understand the bullpen is capable of shutting down the opponent and that one run here or there can make all the difference sometimes.
“It’s maybe not going to work every time,” said Tracy, “but it’s working an awful lot of the time. When you can lock things down at the end of the bullpen, they play to that.”
Let the record show that the Red Sox remain four games under .500 (25-29) at home this season, one more example of how poorly they had played at Fenway for the first half of the season.
But all of that — like misplayed foul popups, stranded baserunners galore and late-inning bullpen meltdowns — seems like a long time ago.
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