Boston's stolen-base percentage 'alarming'

ARLINGTON -- Red Sox manager John Farrell did not mince words Sunday when asked about his team's MLB-worst 50 percent stolen-base percentage this season.
 
"Not good is how I look at it," Farrell said.
 
The Red Sox were caught stealing twice Saturday, keeping them at 11 steals (28th in the Majors). Farrell said the difficulty stealing bases has forced the team to run less; indeed, their 22 attempts are the sixth-fewest in baseball.
 
"The efficiency rate is alarming, almost to the point of saying we need to shut down our running game unless it is determined by us that we can be 100 percent sure, or more than 50 percent sure of success," Farrell said. "We're always going to look to take the extra base whenever we can, but the straight-out steal has been something where we've given away far too many outs on the bases."
 
Last season, they led the Majors with an 87 percent success rate, stealing 123 bags with only 19 caught.
 
"Could we have caught teams by surprise last year? Possibly," Farrell said. "When you look at the success rate of nearly 90 percent or high 80s last year, teams are defending against that more."