Are the Boston Red Sox even any good? MLB’s most inconsistent team remains just outside the AL wild-card picture

The Red Sox won a series in Houston this week against the red-hot Astros, the latest twist in a particularly inconsistent season for Boston.

The three games at Minute Maid Park encompassed much of what the Red Sox have been through in the past month — for better and for worse. Monday’s game followed a script that was all too familiar for the Red Sox. Home runs by Jarren Duran and Masataka Yoshida helped open a 4-2 lead early in the sixth inning, but that lead slowly eroded from there, culminating in a walk-off homer by Yainer Diaz that was given up by closer Kenley Jansen. It was a rare misstep for Jansen, who had been nearly flawless through the first half of the season before struggling in July but appeared to have regained his form in August before Diaz bowed out on Monday.

While Jansen has generally not been at the center of Boston’s recent barrage of blown leads, Monday’s conclusion marked another troubling stretch for a bullpen that has been staggeringly bad since the All-Star break. From the start of the second half through Monday’s game, Boston’s relievers combined for an MLB-worst 6.93 ERA, more than a full run worse than the 29th-ranked White Sox (5.88) over that span.

It’s not just the bullpen, as a rotation that excelled earlier in the season has posted a 5.00 ERA since the break, good for 24th in MLB. With one of baseball’s best offenses — one that has only gotten better as the year has gone on — Boston has been able to overcome poor pitching to avoid significant losing skids. But the state of the staff has made the last handful of frames particularly precarious recently.

That context set the tone for a game Tuesday that seemed headed for a similarly frustrating outcome. A back-and-forth affair tied the game in the sixth inning, creating another delicate situation for which the Red Sox bullpen was responsible. This time, four relievers combined for four scoreless frames, and Duran hit a go-ahead solo homer in the eighth that held up for the win and evened the series.

Wednesday’s rubber match hardly seemed to favor the Red Sox on paper, with Boston’s No. 5 starter, Cooper Criswell, getting the start opposite a future Hall of Famer in Justin Verlander returning from the IL. But after allowing a leadoff home run to Alex Bregman, Criswell settled in, followed by six Red Sox relievers — none of whom were Jansen — who held Houston scoreless for the rest of the game. That this beleaguered unit could claw its way through Houston’s lineup to secure a series win was impressive, especially encouraging given its recent form.

The Astros had won 10 of 11 — including a resounding sweep at Fenway Park a week earlier — entering their series this week, hardly an easy task for a Red Sox team looking to build some positive momentum. Boston’s bold response in Games 2 and 3 after Monday’s heartbreaking event came as less of a surprise from another perspective: The Red Sox are excellent on the road this season. Only the Yankees (41) have more wins away from home this year than Boston (38), whose .585 winning percentage away from home is currently the third-best by a Red Sox team this century, behind only the 2002 and 2018 teams.

The flip side, of course, is a strangely poor showing on the team’s historic home turf, hence the 6.5-game gulf between the Red Sox and their chief rivals in the Bronx. Boston’s 29-32 mark at Fenway is tied with Pittsburgh for the sixth-worst home record in baseball.

So what’s going on? Is this team even any good? Aside from the unusual home/away splits, that question is particularly difficult to answer given Boston’s inability to sync its best performances on the mound with its most productive periods on offense. Here’s a look at where Boston ranks leaguewide in ERA and wRC+ by month:

March/April: 2.62 ERA (1st); 102 wRC+ (13th)
May: 4.12 ERA (17th); 85 wRC+ (23rd)
June: ERA 4.35 (21st); 120 wRC+ (7th)
July: 4.91 ERA (23rd); 128 wRC+ (3rd)
August: 5.35 ERA (28th); 114 wRC+ (9th)

With the arms gone, the offense has found its groove. And with the uneven nature of the roster has come a rather mixed streak of results over the summer. After seeming magnetically locked to .500 for much of May and June, Boston began to take off as the weather—and the bats—warmed up. The Sox won 10 of their last 13 games before the All-Star break to extend their record to a season-best 11 games above .500. Not only did they hold a two-game lead over Kansas City for the third AL wild-card spot, but at the time they were only 4.5 games behind Baltimore in the AL East. The vibes were good and spirits were high.

The second half began with a miserable road trip, getting blown out at Dodger Stadium and losing a series at Coors Field, with the Red Sox giving up 20 runs in the final. They then returned home and promptly lost a series to the Yankees, knocking the Red Sox out of playoff contention, where they have remained, while the Royals and Twins have played some of baseball’s best games in August.

Now, with 36 games remaining — well, 35 plus a suspended game against Toronto that must be completed next week — the Red Sox occupy a unique position in the AL postseason picture as the field of wild-card contenders slowly thins out. Since mid-June, Boston’s playoff odds haven’t dipped below 25%, but they’ve also never risen above 53%; the Red Sox currently sit at about 40%, according to FanGraphs. With Texas disappointing, Toronto and Tampa Bay selling on the trade deadline and Seattle plummeting in recent weeks, Boston has emerged as the most likely alternative to bounce back into postseason contention if teams like Kansas City or Minnesota falter in the final minutes.

But for the Red Sox, the next five weeks can’t just be about watching the scoreboard and hoping the teams ahead of them struggle. If Boston wants to avoid a third straight postseason miss — something the franchise hasn’t suffered since 2012 — it needs to up its game and demonstrate a more consistent marriage of run production and run prevention than it has this season.

This week’s showing in Houston was a promising step in the right direction, but there’s still more work to be done. A tough test awaits this weekend as the formidable Diamondbacks make their first trip to Fenway Park since 2016, with both teams eager to gain ground in the standings as October approaches.