Overall, it was a good week for Reds Country. After dropping the first two contests of the seven-game homestand, the Cincinnati Reds (16-31) rallied to win four of their last five to complete a 4-3 week. If the Redlegs are victorious tonight, they will have finished May with a winning record which seemed inconceivable following a disastrous 3-18 mark in April.
Cincinnati relied on incredible starting pitching to take two of three from a solid San Francisco Giants squad. The trio of Graham Ashcraft, Vladimir Gutierrez, and Tyler Mahle combined to toss 18 innings of one-run baseball against a potent Giants lineup.
The Boston Red Sox (23-26) find themselves in an uncharacteristic position as the calendar prepares to turn to June. Boston currently sits in fourth-place in the ultra-competitive American League East, trailing their arch-rivals, the New York Yankees, by 10.5 games.
Can the Reds get their 1st win at Fenway Park since 1975?
Don't let the record fool you, the Red Sox can light up the scoreboard. Boston leads the AL with a .262 team average and is second in the league with a .426 slugging rate, as play began yesterday. Their league-leading 117 doubles are 34 more than the Minnesota Twins, their closest competitor, in the junior circuit. Wow.
However, success has been more difficult to find on the pitching mound. The Red Sox staff has compiled a 3.91 ERA and is prone to surrender the long ball. BoSox hurlers have been taken deep 61 times during the 2022 campaign. Only the Seattle Mariners staff has allowed more round-trippers in the AL.
Since interleague play was introduced beginning with the 1997 season, no team has dominated the Reds like Boston. The Red Sox hold a ridiculous 12-1 advantage over Cincinnati, including a perfect 5-0 record at Fenway Park.
You have to go back to October of 1975, with Joe Morgan driving home Ken Griffey in the top of the ninth in Game 7 of the Fall Classic breaking a 3-3 tie, to find the last time the Reds celebrated a victory in America's oldest ballpark.