When Giancarlo Stanton knifed his 111.5 mph fly ball through the frigid air at Fenway and over the left field wall in the second inning, it just felt different. For starters, it gave the Red Sox\u2019s opponents a lead, which has never been a good thing for the Sox throughout the 2026 season. But it also hit different for another reason.<\/p>\n
It was a home run.<\/p>\n
The Yankees rolled out the exact game plan the Red Sox were thought to be crafting earlier this past offseason: Great pitching with some thump to go along with it. The result was a 4-0 win for New York, helping build its American League East lead over the Sox to five games.<\/p>\n
The image of the Stanton blast offered the feel and vibe Craig Breslow admittedly knew he should be chasing throughout the winter months.<\/p>\n
Time after time after time, Breslow spoke of the importance of adding someone who can \u201coutsized impact on the rest of the lineup,\u201d and finding someone who \u2018hits the ball out of the ballpark\u201d was a priority. There was a reason he kept going down this road. The Yankees – and plenty of other teams in Major League Baseball – continue to exhibit the value. A value the Red Sox simply don\u2019t currently have.<\/p>\n
Along with a record of 9-14, the numbers don\u2019t lie:<\/p>\n
– The Red Sox have now scored two or fewer runs 10 times this season. In 2018, it took them until June 10 to total that many.<\/p>\n
– The Red Sox hit homers once in every 58 at-bats, second-worst in the big leagues. The Yankees, conversely, are hitting homers once every 22 at-bats.<\/p>\n
– They have hit a total of 13 home runs, one year after a franchise record for the most homers in a season\u2019s first month (40).<\/p>\n
– They are hitting more ground balls than any other team in MLB, with the exception of one.<\/p>\n
– The four Fenway Park home runs for April are one fewer than the team\u2019s lowest output since 2008.<\/p>\n
– The Sox have three games in which they have managed more than one home run, going 1-2 in those contests. The seven teams residing atop their respective divisions are combined 43-8 when hitting two or more homers, with none of that group having fewer than six games of two or more homers.<\/p>\n
The only offensive start this can be compared to for the Red Sox is 2022, a season they also started at 9-14. That April was also offensively horrific, totaling a .609 OPS and just 12 homers. But the difference was that they had proven power-hitting commodities – Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez, and Xander Bogaerts – who were able to execute an about-face.<\/p>\n
A month later in that 2022 season, the Red Sox blasted 37 homers while managing an .822 OPS thanks in large part to explosions by all of those eventual All-Stars. Right now, envisioning such a turnaround with the bats seems implausible.<\/p>\n
This current Yankees\u2019 lineup is thick with the benefit of the doubt. The Red Sox? Not so much.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an existence the Red Sox were warned of, with the Yankees offering the latest painful reminder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Giancarlo Stanton knifed his 111.5 mph fly ball through the frigid air at Fenway and over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,4,1690,62,2548,2547,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-681033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkyankees","14":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116448453092341632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}