They say numbers never lie, and this also rings true for the 2014 Boston Red Sox. A maddeningly inconsistent but nonetheless exciting start to the season has left the Red Sox with plenty of reasons for both optimism and doubt moving forward as the weather warms up and players fully enter their regular-season grooves.
It’s difficult to encapsulate the Red Sox’s up-and-down season in words, but it’s somewhat easier to tell the story of the first five-plus weeks of the season through statistics. When you look at the numbers, it’s clear where we can expect this Boston team to improve, where it might struggle all year and why it’s played below its talent level thus far.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the five most telling Red Sox stats from early 2014.
Unless otherwise attributed, all of the following stats come courtesy of Baseball-Reference.