McAdam: Red Sox' troubles at Fenway continue

It was bad enough that the Red Sox lost their second straight game to the Toronto Blue Jays, a team being kept out of the American League basement only by the good graces of the moribund Baltimore Orioles.

And bad enough that that meant a lost series at a time when there was the expectation that Sox could continue to make up some ground in the division.

But the most sobering part of the 6-1 defeat wasn't so much what led to the loss, but rather, that it continued a season-long pattern at home. In the final week of June, the Red Sox now find themselves with a losing record at Fenway Park (18-19), a number that would have been unimaginable not long ago.

At nearly the halfway point, the Red Sox have won two of 12 series at home this season.

Go figure.



"It's surprising,'' acknowledged Brock Holt. "You want to win most of your games at home and we haven't been able to do that. I don't know the reason why but we've got to a better job in our own park, for sure.''

Count Rick Porcello as someone else who didn't have a logical explanation for the team's struggles.

"I don't know,'' he said, shaking his head. "Usually, we play pretty damn well here and this year, that hasn't been the case. It's not like you go into different ballparks and then you play at home and your game plan changes or anything like that. I think we have some of the same focus and game plan wherever we are but for whatever reason, we haven't done a good at home and we need to take back that advantage.

"This is a different ballpark here and it's tough for teams to come in and learn the different nooks and crannies here or whatever it is. But we haven't been taking advantage of that and we need to start to.''

On the road, the Red Sox have reeled off some impressive streaks, including the recent swing which saw them go  5-1 with the one loss coming in a 17-inning affair in Minnesota.

But back home, the Sox seem unable to get any traction. They had a six-game streak -- split up on different homestands -- after taking three from Oakland, and, a week later, three more from Seattle in late April and early May.

But other than that, they haven't won more than three in a row on the same homestand.

Alex Cora went so far as to say that the Sox "didn't show up'' in the loss Sunday, though he later clarified that he didn't mean to suggest a lack of effort on the team's part.

Still, Cora couldn't help noting that the team could use improvement in virtually every facet of the game and Sunday's loss bore that out.

Porcello allowed five runs, including one generated by a balk when he had a brain cramp, believing there had been time called when in fact it hadn't.

The offense was its usual inconsistent self, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and collecting multiple baserunners in just two of the first eight innings.

The closest the Sox came to scoring until the ninth was the result of a poor call by interim third base coach Andy Barkett, who waved home a hobbled Holt (hamstring) with one out and saw him turn into road kill 12 feet from the plate.

The Chicago White Sox come to town Monday, and ordinarily, that would represent a chance to turn things around. But the Sox will need to take two of three before leaving for London just to earn a .500 homestand against two teams with losing records.

That hardly sounds sufficient for a team which literally won two of every three home games last year.

Coming into this current homestand, it was noted that no team in the American League had played fewer games at home, so mathematically, there's time to get it going.

But for now, the prospect of a lot of upcoming games at Fenway reads more like a trap than an opportunity.

Perhaps what the Red Sox need is what awaits them next weekend: two games officially classified as home games, but played better than 3,000 miles away from their own ballpark.