This was the plan: the Red Sox would come home from their three-game trek to Chicago, beat up on a couple of last-place teams and provide them with some sustenance for a challenging 10-game tour of the West Coast.
The way their rejuvenated lineup had been hitting, Fenway would offer the perfect venue for the offense to keep rolling. After all, it wasn't as if the Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds were anything to fear in the pitching department.
But reality bites, and it has chomped down hard on the Red Sox in the last five days. Instead of lighting up the scoreboard like a pinball machine on this short homestand, the Red Sox have gone stagnant.
On Monday night, they lost to last-place Baltimore and were held without a run.
On Tuesday night, they lost to last-place Cincinnati and were held without a run for the first eight innings. When they finally managed a run in the bottom of the ninth, it wasn't enough in a dispiriting 2-1 loss to the lowly Reds. It took three hits in the ninth to avoid suffering consecutive shutouts at home for the first time in two decades.
Worse, the setback dropped the Red Sox' home record to 12-14 through the first two months of the season.
If any of this is sounding familiar, it's because the Red Sox had a similar slow start at home last season, going 10-11 in their first 21 games at Fenway before playing at a .650 clip (39-21) the rest of the way.
That could still happen again this season, of course, though there are hardly any guarantees. In the meantime, the Red Sox scratch their heads and wonder what has happened to their alleged home-field advantage. They're already assured of a losing homestand against two poor opponents.
"Disappointing,'' confirmed Alex Cora. "We still have one more game, but we've got to be better at home. For us to make it to where we want to go, we have to be better here. That's the bottom line. Teams that make it to October, they dominate at home and they survive on the road. But at home, you've got to be better and we haven't done a good job.
"We gained some ground on the road there for a little bit, and we lost some ground this weekend (at Fenway). Overall, to get to October, it starts here and we haven't done a good job so far. We have to be better -- that's the bottom line.''
On Tuesday, Fenway was quiet for most of the night -- and for good reason. The Red Sox had one hit over the first eight innings. The closest they came to a scoring threat came in the sixth when Reds starter Luis Castillo, tiring some, issued walks to the first two batters. But a double play and a strikeout killed that rally and the Sox didn't have another baserunner until the ninth.
By then, the ballpark was two-thirds empty.
"It's a mindset,'' Cora said. "You've got to get these (fans) going. Because when it's loud, (the opponents) feel the pressure. But if we don't do our job here, or we don't get leads, or we're not doing what we usually do here, it's very quiet and it's a very comfortable place to play for the opposition. But when this place is loud and it's Fenway, it's tough to play here.''
Xander Bogaerts was unaware of his club's record at home, and reacted with surprise when he was told that the Sox were now two games under .500 at home.
"Under?'' he said. "I didn't expect that. I feel like we had been doing really good at home. Maybe it's lately. Other teams get excited about coming here. That Green Monster's right there and they get excited. But there aren't a lot of games you're going to win if you have one hit going into the ninth. That's just the way it is.''
What was supposed to be an opportunity to make up additional ground, get to -- or above -- the .500 mark and serve as a springboard before the team leaves Fenway for 12 days has, instead, served as a trap door. The Red Sox, having clawed their way toward the break-even mark are now four games under .500.
Perhaps the past six games (2-4) have been an aberration. Perhaps, like last year, the team will rev up in the summer months and ride raucous crowds at Fenway into the postseason.
But after Wednesday, they'll have to concentrate on being able to survive on the road, and hope that when they next return, June 14, there's still something to salvage of the 2022 season.