Grueling schedule not doing Red Sox any favors

Although the Red Sox are in decent shape in the standings as it relates to the postseason, the schedule makers didn’t do them any favors.

Starting Monday, the Red Sox will play 43 games in 44 days until Aug. 31 and in the middle of that will play in four ballparks in five days as they have a makeup game with Cleveland on Aug. 15, which was supposed to be an off-day.

Also, starting July 28, 41 of the Red Sox’ final 63 games will be played on the road and 17 of their 39 games from July 28-Sept. 7 will be played on the West Coast.

Manager John Farrell feels the team is well equipped to handle the schedule with the number of young players the team has, as well as the recent acquisitions president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has made.

“I think we’re looking forward to it,” Farrell said. “I think the depth of our bench is really going to be felt. The ability to rotate [Aaron] Hill through there, [Bryce] Brentz. Obviously Michael Martinez has yet to get on the field with any regularity of importance, but his availability to us is going to come into play. … Again, we’re relatively in a good place physically from a health standpoint. How we balance that out with David [Ortiz] and others, I think we’re set up with a balanced roster to handle this set of games.”

The Red Sox have performed quite well at home this season, as going into Monday they averaged 5.8 runs a game and were batting over .300 as a team.

Given the few home games remaining, the team needs to take advantage of the ones they have now, which are winnable games: After they face the Giants they host the Diamondbacks over the weekend and the Tigers early next week. Boston was built around playing at Fenway Park with their lineup and it’s shown as they have won eight of their last 10 home games going into Monday.

It’s important for the Red Sox to go on a run and take advantage of their home games. The last thing they can afford is to need a long winning streak in September to reach the postseason. They would be asking a lot considering they only have 10 home games combined between September and October.

So when it feels like the Red Sox aren’t at home much at the end of the season, it’s because they really aren’t.