Red Sox May Preview

After making such a surprising run to the ALCS last season, there were certainly high hopes for this Red Sox roster, even acknowledging the weaknesses on the roster and the strong division. Even if they weren’t favorites in most people’s eyes, I think the majority of fans at least saw them hanging around in contention basically all season. That’s certainly not out the window here as we just turn the calendar to May, but they are coming off a poor month of April, starting the season with a 9-14 record. Normally this is where I would shout out the commenter whose guess for an April record was closest to how the team actually finished, but, well, I straight-up forgot to do an April preview. I’ll blame it on the madness of the shortened spring training and the regular season catching up on me. But remember, at the bottom of this post, to give your prediction for how the team will do in May.

The good thing about Boston’s May schedule is that they will be spending a whole lot of time at home. After spending a good chunk of April away from Fenway, they’ll be back in Boston this week with a six-game homestand. Later in the month, they have a seven-game homestand, and then after a brief trip on the road they come back to Fenway for six games in five days to finish out the month. In total, including the road game in Baltimore on Sunday, Boston plays 19 of their 28 games in May at home. They also have three days off in the month, including today’s. In terms of travel, they do have to go out of the division on the road, with their longest trip being out to Texas to play the Rangers.

That’s the good news. The bad news is the level of competition is going to be fairly intense. As they come back home this week they face an Angels team who is off to a hot start, and a struggling White Sox team, but one with plenty of talent. They also play the defending champion Braves, the Astros, and the upstart Mariners this month. Looking at teams’ records to start the season things don’t look quite as bad, with only three of their eight series coming against teams with records of .500 or better through Sunday’s action. That also doesn’t count the single games on either end of the month, with Sunday’s game coming against Baltimore and their last game of the month coming against the Reds. That said, they have two series against the White Sox and one against the Braves, both of whom look better on paper than their record.

Check out the team’s full schedule here if you’d like. They play 28 games in the month of May, and they really need to get it going. I think they’ll be better than we saw last month, but still not quite breaking out. The schedule softens as the month goes on and I see them taking some momentum into June, but ultimately I’ll predict a 15-13 record for the month. What say you?