The Red Sox walked into October with a lineup that had already been sputtering, and the numbers made the problem impossible to ignore. Boston was the lowest scoring team in the league in September, and it also finished with the lowest batting average and lowest OPS in that span.
That weakness loomed even larger because of the bracket Boston landed in. The New York Yankees were one of the best pitching teams in the league with home run power, while the Tampa Bay Rays were the best team in the American League all season. In other words, even a hotter Red Sox offense would have had its hands full.
At the club’s end-of-season press conference, Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow pointed directly at the issues that dragged the lineup down.
"Our offense was inconsistent and we got on base at a decent clip but we didn't really slug, we didn't hit a ton of home runs, and I'm not sure that we took advantage of the unique venue that we play in," Breslow said.
That last part is the sharpest admission of all. Boston plays half its games at Fenway Park, one of the most hitter-friendly parks in the league, yet the roster was built with a different priority.
The Red Sox leaned into a “run prevention” approach, and in one sense it worked. Their pitching staff, led by a dominant and revamped starting rotation without the help of Garrett Crochet, allowed the third-fewest runs in baseball this season at 566, tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But stopping runs only gets you so far if the offense can’t answer back. Outside of their 35-5 stretch over the summer, the Red Sox rarely found a way to stack enough hits together when they were trailing by two or three runs. They also finished with just 162 home runs, the fourth-fewest in the league, leaving too much pressure on rallies and too little threat of the game changing with one swing.
Fenway Park should have been part of the answer. The Green Monster usually helps Boston pile up doubles and gives the defense a familiar edge, while right-handed power can play well to left field, where the wall sits just 302 feet from home plate at its closest point.
But Breslow never added a hitter whose game was clearly built to exploit that advantage, despite opportunities to do it. Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso and Kyle Schwarber were all mentioned as the kind of fit that could have changed the shape of the lineup.
Willson Contreras still delivered value, and his 27 homers mattered, but Boston needed more than that in the AL East. Against a division packed with tough competition, including the Yankees, the Red Sox simply did not have enough home run threats.
The message from Breslow’s season-ending remarks was plain: pitching and defense can carry a team only so far. If Boston wants a deeper run next year, the offense has to do more - and the roster has to be built to make Fenway Park work for it, not against it.
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