Previewing the month of May for the Red Sox

The Red Sox, in case you haven’t heard, have gotten off to a fairly decent start to the season. After a win to finish off the month of April, the team is off to their best start in franchise history and are coming off the best month of April they’ve ever had. That’s pretty damn impressive considering that the Red Sox have been around for a sizable chunk of time. This ain’t the Rays or Diamondbacks we’re talking about. It’s fair to say that we can’t expect a 21-7 pace to continue for the entire season, though I am here for a 121-win season if that’s what they’re going to do. Still, this is a talented roster and they’ll look to prove that opening month was no fluke as they turn the calendar over to May. Before we look at that, a quick shoutout to Lala’s Da, who was the closest to correctly predicting the team’s April record with a prediction of 20-9.

The Red Sox have a couple of games at home this month before going on a long road trip that will eat up almost half of the upcoming month. The good news is that they don’t have to travel way out west — more 10 PM starts may have literally killed me, so I appreciate the break from those — but they do have a trip out to Texas before heading back east. That road trip is followed by a pair of week-long homestands at Fenway that are separated by a mini three-game stint down in Florida. All told, May will feature 15 games at home and 14 games on the road.

So, the environment in which they’ll play is more or less even, but what about the level of competition? Well, they start things off with a chance to pad their record a little bit. The first six games are against the Royals and Rangers, a pair of teams bringing up the rear in their divisions and combine for a record of 18-40. The rest of the month is mostly tough, or at least not a cakewalk. The only other truly bad team on the schedule, at least judging by April results, is the Orioles. Other than that, they have three against the Yankees, six against the Blue Jays, three against the A’s, three against the Rays, three against the Braves and a lone game against the defending champion Astros in a series that will roll into June. Now, opinions may vary on teams like Tampa Bay, Oakland and Atlanta, but it’s hard to deny how they’ve looked in April, and for the Rays how they’ve looked specifically over the last week or so.

In the end it’s sort of a mixed bag for the Red Sox moving forward, and there are going to be some big tests for this team in the coming month. They will be traveling a bunch, and they are only going to have two off-days. One of those will be right before the start of the Yankees series and the other will come on May 21 before a three-game series in Tampa Bay. Ultimately, I think it’s going to be a more pedestrian month for this team, though still a solid one. I’ll say they finish with a 17-12 record. What say you?