McAdam: An inside look at the numbers that have the Red Sox stuck in third place

On Wednesday, the Red Sox suffered their 38th defeat of the season - a hideous 8-7 loss to the Chicago White Sox, a game in which they led by a run with three outs to go.

Of course, even in their magical 2018 season, the Sox lost their 38th game, too.

It came on Aug. 20.

So, roughly translated, the Red Sox are more than seven weeks behind last year's pace.

It may not have been reasonable to expect that the Sox would duplicate last year's achievements. After all, the 108-win regular season was the best in franchise history -- for a team that has been around for more than a century.

But surely, after retaining better than 90 percent of the same roster, the Red Sox were supposed to be better than this.

How did they get here? Here are five numbers to contemplate while the Red Sox get a few days off in London before resuming their season on Saturday.



20-20.

No, this isn't about hindsight ('Should they have added to the bullpen? Was the Eovaldi contract a good idea?'). And it's not about vision.

It's the Red Sox' home record this season. Of the seven other playoff contenders -- New York, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Cleveland, Houston, Texas and Oakland -- every single other club has a winning record at home. The worst of this group is Tampa Bay (20-18). And we know that playing in the sparsely attended Tropicana Field is no advantage at all.

How much of a drop-off have the Sox experienced at Fenway since last season?

Consider: with 41 remaining home games over the next three months, the Red Sox would have to almost go undefeated (37-4) to match last year's win total.

At just over the halfway mark of the season, the Red Sox have won all of three home series this season -- and only two since May 1. Two of the three have come against teams with losing records. None has come against a division rival.

.789

This is the team's OPS with runners in scoring position, good for just sixth in the American League. The batting average is only slightly better compared to others in the AL -- their .270 figure is fifth in the league.

It's not difficult at all to think of a handful of games in which the Red Sox failed to deliver with baserunners in scoring position -- either early in games, with the chance to put opponents away, or later, with the game on the line.

J.D. Martinez, the team's best run producer, is hitting a pedestrian .284 in such situations. By way of comparison, he hit .386 in the same spots last season. That better than 100 point drop-off is stunning.

For Mookie Betts, Boston's other marquee star in the lineup, the slippage is nearly as significant. A year ago, Betts slashed .325/.496/.714 with runners in scoring position for a robust 1.210 OPS with RISP.

This year, Betts' slash line reads .259/.462/.333 for an OPS of .795.

(The .333 slugging percentage with RISP is not a typo, but it is stunning).

Four.

This represents the number of games the Red Sox have lost when leading after eight innings, topped, of course, by Wednesday's debacle.

The number is more damning when you examine how they've fared when leading after seven innings -- they've lost seven such games.

But let's be generous here and note that a lot can happen over the final six outs of a game. You should win most of the games you're leading after seven, but perhaps not all.

But after eight? With three measly outs to go? Those should be automatic.

Give the Red Sox four more wins and take away four losses and they'd be 48-34. That wouldn't lift them into first place in the division, but it would vault them over second-place Tampa Bay, put them first in wild-card standings and have them reasonably positioned at five games back rather than the current nine.

47 percent

This is the percentage of games in which the Red Sox have received a quality start from their Big Five (Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi).

Note that doesn't include the games started by others, mostly those who've filled in for the injured Eovaldi. In those 15 other games, the Sox have gotten exactly one quality start — that by Ryan Weber in Toronto last month.

So maybe it's not reasonable to expect that the spot or depth starters pitch gems, although, say, four or five out of 15 wouldn't seem like much to ask. But, we digress.

The Sox' payroll has invested more than $85 million in the starting rotation. It was supposed to be a strength. While every other team was going to rely on its bullpen to succeed, the Sox took the old-school approach of investing in starting pitchers.

But that hasn't worked.

Quality starts (six or more innings, three earned runs or fewer) shouldn't be difficult to come by. And yet, in less than half their starts to date, the Red Sox Big Five have either failed to go six innings, or, given up more than four earned runs. Or sometimes both.

34

This is the number of runs the Red Sox have scored in the first inning of games this season.

Obviously, that needs some context.

Is it good? Is it bad? Is it average?

Answer: it's bad.

The 34 runs in the first represent the lowest number of runs scored in any inning, 1-9, for the Red Sox this season.

And here's why that number is particularly bad: because the first inning is traditionally the highest-scoring inning in game. (That, in part, explains the phenomenon of the "opener'' -- teams want an experienced and fresh pitcher in the first to shut down the opponents before turning to a pitcher who's still developing in the second or third).

The first inning is the only inning in which you're guaranteed to have your 1-2-3 hitters come to the plate, and given the evolution of thought when it comes to lineup construction, for the vast majority of teams, these three spots are often occupied by a team's three best hitters.

And that gets us back to the problem. The Sox have gotten next to nothing out of their leadoff spot most of the season. Andrew Benintendi was given the spot for the first two-plus months and failed, especially in the first inning.

While Benintendi's on-base percentage was better than average overall in the top spot (.362) he managed just three hits in 37 at-bats leading off games for an .081 batting average.

Betts hasn't been much of an improvement.

Since being reinstalled as the team's leadoff man three weeks ago, Betts is 5-for-30 leading off the game, without an extra-base hit.