Royal Rooters > Home vs Away

Royal Rooters > WE'RE TALKIN' BASEBALL > RED SOX - ON THE FIELD

BlackJack

May 30 2005, 09:51 AM

I read the following in the Globe's Red Sox Notebook.

QUOTE(Chris Snow @ Red Sox Notebook, Globe)

The Sox were 55-26 at home last year with a .304 team batting average and 43-38 on the road with a .260 average. This season, they're 13-6 at Fenway Park but just 14-16 on the road, having lost eight of their last 12 outside of Boston. The Sox are hitting .286 at Fenway with a 3.84 ERA. Outside of Boston, they entered last night hitting .280 as a team with a 5.42 ERA.

This got me to thinking. People always talk about the Sox being built to play at Fenway, and they are generally referring to the offense. But so far this season, the pitching has been the difference at home. Is it possible that the Sox are designed to pitch better at Fenway? Or is this merely a statistical quirk due to a small sample size?

The Sox are hitting better at Fenway, with the major disparity between home and away being the slugging. Lots of extra base hits in Fenway.

The pitching on the other hand is averaging almost a run and a half lower ERA as well as a much better K rate (6.79 home vs 5.58 away).

CODE

Fenway:
NAME G AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS
Red Sox 19 640 117 183 43 4 25 309 110 84 119 2 0 .286 .375 .483 .858
Opponents 19 670 79 177 51 2 9 259 74 54 129 14 4 .264 .322 .387 .708

CODE

Road:
NAME G AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS
Red Sox 30 1070 155 303 51 4 31 455 150 125 190 9 1 .283 .361 .425 .786
Opponents 30 999 158 276 56 11 37 465 150 81 158 15 5 .276 .343 .465 .809

CODE

Fenway:
NAME G GS W L Sv Hld IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA
Red Sox 19 19 13 6 3 11 171.0 177 73 9 54 129 6.79 251.8 1.35 3.84

CODE

Road:
NAME G GS W L Sv Hld IP H ER HR BB SO K/9 P/GS WHIP ERA
Red Sox 30 30 14 16 8 12 254.2 276 150 37 81 158 5.58 159.5 1.40 5.30

stats from ESPN.com

czar

May 30 2005, 10:43 AM

There always is something to a home-field advantage-- I loved playing at home when I pitched in high-school over playing on the road-- no matter WHAT the field dimensions...

The WHIPs are somewhat close, which seems to tell me that either some form of luck or park factors are involved in the discrepency, but the K/9 rates show that once in a while we might get that big strikeout with RISP that we don't get on the road.

I'll bet before the end of this year, these numbers come much closer together, but it wouldn't at all surprise me if we still pitch slightly better at home just because of the psychological factor...

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