It's a what-if that has been beaten to death.
What if the Red Sox actually made a better run at Pete Alonso this offseason?
It would have made all the sense in the world. That was a reality that was drilled home Tuesday night at Fenway Park when Alonso launched a game-changing, two-run homer in the third inning of what would be a 4-2 win for the Orioles.
He hits home runs, and, as confirmed by Craig Breslow last November, this was going to be a Red Sox team that would need more home runs. And it didn't hurt that Alonso's wife is from Massachusetts. All of that, however, never prompted the Sox front office to keep up with the Orioles' pursuit that ultimately landed Alonso via a five-year, $150 million deal.
It was hard to ignore the feeling and the presence provided by Alonso each and every time he stepped to the plate with the left field wall representing a perfect target for the righty hitter. And when the home run did actually happen, leading to yet another Fenway Park loss for the Red Sox, it served as the perfectly-placed dagger.
Alonso has become exactly what the Orioles ordered, and the Red Sox have needed, a middle-of-the-order presence that opposing teams are worrying about well before the spot even arrives. He has more multi-hit games than any other member of an Orioles team that has now won eight of its last 11 games, while hitting .310 with four homers in his last 18 contests.
It would have been nice.
In large part because of Alonso's homer, the Red Sox are now an MLB-worst 9-20 at home, their worst home record through 29 games since going 7-22 in 1932. They have now lost 12 of their last 16 home games, dropping 9 of the last 11.
The reason? Primarily the inability to score runs. The Red Sox have scored two or fewer runs in 15 of their 29 home games (going 2-13 on such occasions), and are averaging 3.2 runs per game at Fenway compared to 4.7 runs on the road.
The Sox's 17 home runs at home are easily the fewest in baseball, trailing the next-lowest, the Rangers, by six. It also 32 fewer than the Mariners, who have hit more home runs at their home ballpark than any other team.
Wilyer Abreu (.840 OPS on the road, .640 at home), Marcelo Mayer (.703 OPS on the road, .441 at home), and Willson Contreras (.912 OPS on the road, .842 at home) are all individual examples of performing better away from 4 Jersey St. And as a team, the Sox have 10 more homers on the road than at Fenway despite having played just one more game.
Why? The Red Sox are starving for answers, which Isiah Kiner-Falefa attempted to deliver after the loss.
"Sick of it," Kiner-Falefa said. "And I think everybody in here is sick of it. We’ve got to find a way to be better."
He then added, "I just feel like on the road, we're a very close-knit team. We come home and there's just a lot of people. A lot of people. It's different. It's just a different vibe at home. And we got to figure out a way to make it small like how it is on the road. Just feel like at home we see a lot of people that we don't know, or, you know, that are around this area .... It's just a close-knit group. And we were becoming a really close team. And, yeah, we got to find a way to bring that back home."
Home runs. Vibes. Distractions. Pick your poison. Whatever the case, the Red Sox better start finding an antidote to this sickness at home in a hurry.
