Red Sox seeking answers to historic woes at Fenway

BOSTON – The Fenway funk the Red Sox are stuck in has become more than troubling. In fact, it has become historic.

A 4-2 defeat to the Orioles in Tuesday night’s opener of a three-game series left the club with a 9-20 record (worst in the Majors) in the supposed comforts of their home ballpark.

The last Boston team that got off to a slower start at Fenway Park? You’d have to go back to 1932, when the Sox started 7-22 through the same amount of games.

For the fans, it is annoying. For the players, who have been part of 12 losses in the last 15 home games, it is exasperating.

“Sick of it,” said Red Sox infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “And I think everybody in here is sick of it. We’ve got to find a way to be better.”

Making it all the more frustrating is that things have been much better for Boston on the road, particularly of late. After a successful weekend in Cleveland in which they took two out of three against the AL Central-leading Guardians, the Sox enjoyed a day off, then went back to work, only to feel like it was Groundhog Day.

Is it mystifying?

“I mean, a little bit,” said interim manager Chad Tracy. “It is what it is at this point. I know our goal is just to go out and play baseball, and it'll turn eventually. It’s obvious the way we've played so well on the road, and it's been a struggle here as far as wins and losses are concerned.”

Overall, the Sox are 16-14 on the road. Each time they have a good road series, they come home with the hopes that things are going to change.

So far, they haven’t.

“This is just like the normal play at Fenway thing,” Kiner-Falefa said. “Not good enough. Gotta figure out a way to gain some momentum here, score early. Get the fans on our side early. Get the environment early. It's hard to get the place jumping when you're not out in front early.”

The Sox actually did score first on Tuesday, getting a Jarren Duran triple to lead off the first and a sacrifice fly by Wilyer Abreu after that. If the start seemed auspicious, it didn’t last. The Boston bats generated just four hits the rest of the night and were stifled by O’s right-hander Shane Baz.

Pete Alonso, an offseason target of the Red Sox via free agency, unloaded for a two-run homer off Early in the third that snapped a 1-1 tie. It turned out to be an unrecoverable blow.

At Fenway, a 3-1 deficit can be nothing through three innings. But it was something on Tuesday.

Any reason the team hasn't been able to grab that spark the Fenway faithful has been waiting, well, impatiently for?

“I don't know. I think baseball happens,” Abreu said. “Right now, we can’t win games here, but we’re trying, we’re battling, we’re trying our best and working on trying to win here.”

Perhaps it is fortunate that this is just a three-game homestand for the 25-34 Sox, who head back out on the road this weekend to face the Yankees and then the Rays to start next week.

But after that, the home schedule is going to pick up, with 13 out of 19 games at Fenway between June 12 and July 1. That increases the urgency for the Sox to find a way to start delivering in their home park.

Fenway Park is a madhouse when the Sox are playing well. It can be one of the best home-field advantages at any sporting venue in the country. This is particularly true when the summer weather starts to hit, and Tuesday was a nice night (73 degrees at first pitch) for baseball.

“We all want the crowd to go crazy because it’s exciting,” Abreu said.

A watered-down American League has kept the Red Sox within range of a Wild Card spot despite their rough start to the season.

But if things don’t change at home in the near future, it likely won’t make a difference.

So far this season, momentum seems to abandon the Red Sox as soon as the team charter lands at Logan Airport.

“It feels that way, but there are still a couple games left,” Tracy said. “So in our minds, as baseball players, coaches, is to go out and win the next two, win the series, and that changes that whole narrative. So, it is what it is today, but we’ve still got two games that we’ve got to focus on winning.”