Home field hasn’t been much of an advantage for the Boston Red Sox this season.
With a loss in Sunday’s series finale against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox’s record at Fenway Park in 2019 dropped to 18-19. Boston, which currently sits eight games back of first place in the American League East, conversely is 24-18 on the road.
This narrative couldn’t have been further in the opposite direction last season. The Red Sox posted a regular-season winning percentage of 70 percent on their home diamond in 2018 en route to a World Series championship. As such, Rick Porcello, who took the loss Sunday, can’t put on a finger on why Boston hasn’t enjoyed much success at Fenway this season.
“I don’t know. Usually, we play pretty damn well here,” Porcello said, per The Boston Globe.
Porcello continued: “It’s not like you go into different ballparks or you play at home and your game plan changes. I think we have the same focus and the same game plan wherever we are but for whatever reason we haven’t done a good job at home. We need to take back that advantage.
“This is a different ballpark here and it’s tough for teams to come and learn the different nooks and crannies here or whatever it is. We haven’t been taking advantage of that and we need to start to.”
The Red Sox’s struggles at home might be overblown, as the club largely has been inconsistent from the get-go regardless of where the games have been played. Boston technically will be the home team this weekend when it battles the first-place New York Yankees, but the two-game series will be played at London Stadium.
Who knows, maybe playing a pair of games over 3,000 miles from home will help the Sox hit the reset button.
