Red Sox July Preview: You know the saying about getting off the pot

The Red Sox just cannot seem to get on a real run in this 2019 season, as it seems like every time things are starting to go well things come crashing back down to Earth. This hasn’t been a total disaster in the sense that they have played themselves out of a playoff race in the first half of the year. That said, it certainly hasn’t been a success and is clearly a disappointment. After playing a little better in the month of May, they stayed at a similar slightly-above-.500 pace in the month of June. After a 15-12 month they are sitting at 44-40 overall. The most important thing here, however, is that I nailed their June record with my prediction in the month’s preview. That’s worth celebrating. BoSox Fan from Canada, Eh, also correctly predicted June’s record.

Looking ahead to July’s schedule, it is obviously a bit more abbreviated than your typical month what with the four-day break in the middle of the month for the All-Star festivities in Cleveland. In terms of travel, though, the Red Sox will not be back in Boston until after the break. The good news, though, is that they don’t have to travel all that far over the course of the month other than the flight back to North America from London. The furthest away from home they’ll be this month is in Detroit right before the break. Overall, of the team’s 25 games in July, 12 are on the road with 13 coming at home.

As we move on to the level of competition that will be faced in the coming month, it is an extremely mixed bag with teams on both ends of the spectrum. The good news is Boston theoretically has a chance to get on a good roll heading into the break with three games apiece against the Blue Jays and Tigers. Of course, we know the Red Sox haven’t always handled business agains the bad teams. After the break, things get tough with three games right out of the gate against the Dodgers in a World Series rematch. They also end the month with a brutal and crucial nine-game stretch agains the Yankees and Rays. That stretch actually continues into August as well, but that’s not relevant to our discussion here. Overall, they have 12 games against teams that are firmly in the playoffs picture as we speak today and 13 against teams that are well out of it.

At this point, all months are big for a team in the position in which the Red Sox find themselves. In July, though, we’re really going to figure out where this team stands. They have a chance to get off to a hot start with six games against bad teams, but the end of the month is really going to tell the story. I can see this going in a number of different ways and really wouldn’t be surprised by any results. That said — and perhaps this is just the disappointment from this past weekend speaking — I’m going to predict a disappointing 12-13 record for the month as this team slinks further into mediocrity. What say you?