It’s been a season full of questions for the Boston Red Sox, none more perplexing than this: Why has Boston struggled so much at Fenway Park?
The Red Sox are 8-17 at home, the worst mark in Major League Baseball, entering Tuesday’s matchup with the visiting Atlanta Braves, who happen to have the sport’s best road record (19-8). Boston’s 6-5 loss to Minnesota on Sunday extended the team’s home losing streak to four games.
“You can readily acknowledge (that) at some point this year, if we’re gonna do something, we’re gonna have to get going at home,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy said. “It’s just that simple. These are not blowouts. We’re playing good baseball games. But we’re gonna have to win some games at home, no question.”
The Red Sox are 1-6-1 in home series this season. They haven’t won a series at Fenway Park since they took two of three games from Milwaukee by winning the rubber match on April 8.
“It’s tough,” Isiah Kiner-Falefa said following Sunday’s loss to Minnesota. “You look at the standings and somehow we’re still in it. So I think that helps a lot. I felt like this series would have been a big swing with our team, the fan base, getting the belief back and kind of going from there. So to get swept right here definitely hurts.
“We feel it. As a group, we really want to make our fan base proud and hopefully we can go on a run and get in this wild-card thing or maybe back in the division. But one step at a time. First we gotta find a way to stack some wins together at home and get back in the race.”
The Braves, who won two of the three games between the teams played in Atlanta earlier this month, are scheduled to start right-handed pitcher Spencer Strider (2-0, 3.00 ERA) on Tuesday. Strider has made two career starts against Boston and allowed three earned runs on nine hits in 11 2/3 innings (2.31 ERA), but didn’t get a decision in either game.
Boston is expected to go with lefty Ranger Suarez (2-2, 2.40 ERA). Suarez has made 22 appearances against Atlanta during his career, including 13 starts. He’s 4-4 with a 3.38 ERA and has recorded 86 strikeouts in 80 innings.
The Braves, who have the most wins in the major leagues (36), will be looking to jump-start their offense after being held to one run across two losses to Washington on Saturday (2-0) and Sunday (2-1). Atlanta was limited to one hit on Saturday and went 17 straight innings without scoring before pushing a run across in the ninth inning Sunday.
“It’s just difficult to go out and score six or seven runs every single night,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “So there’s going to be times where you have a handful of guys that are searching for it at the same time. I think that’s kind of what we’re going through right now.”
Matt Olson is batting .160 (8-for-50) with two extra-base hits in his last 13 games.
“He’s been so good since the start of the season that these things tend to level off,” Weiss said. “But, I feel really good any time Matt Olson is in the batter’s box. I feel like something good is about to happen, and it usually does.”
–Field Level Media
