The start to the season has not gone well for the Boston Red Sox. In fact, one metric tells us that they’re struggling as no defending champion ever has.
With their loss on Wednesday, the Red Sox moved to 6-13. Boston has also allowed 119 runs and scored only 77. As Jon Heyman of Fancred sports noted, no defending champ has ever had that poor of a run differential through 19 games.
It’s also worth mentioning that the 2018 Red Sox went 108-54. Other than the New York Yankees (who went 106-45 in 1939), none of these other defending champs were coming off of a season that was anywhere near that good.
Now, if you’re looking for a reason to be optimistic, there is this. Aside from the 1998 Florida Marlins — who were essentially a completely different team — all of these teams did finish the year with a winning record. So, there is some positive precedent for Boston. The negative precedent is that none of these teams even returned to the postseason.
So, the Red Sox have definitely dug themselves quite a hole. And while there is a lot of baseball left, history tells us that climbing out will be easier said than done.