Looking back at other shortened Red Sox seasons

1994 Red Sox (54-61)

The 1994 season is the most infamous in MLB history, as it is the only season in the last 117 years in which no World Series was played. Unlike 1904, in which the New York Giants refused to play the upstart American League champion Boston Americans, this World Series was canceled due to the third in-season player strike in 22 years.

This time, the work stoppage was over a proposed salary cap by the owners, who also wanted to eliminate salary arbitration and make any player with less than six years of service time a restricted free agent. The players went on strike on August 12 and wouldn’t return until the following April.

If there was a silver lining to this strike, however, it was that the Red Sox were well out of contention by the time the season was canceled. They sat at just 54-61, a sure bet to extend their playoff drought to four.

There were some standout performers at the plate, such as Mo Vaughn (.310/.408/.576) and John Valentin (.316/.400/.505), but they didn’t have nearly enough help. The club finished 12th in the AL in batting average and 11th in runs.

The pitching staff was a similar story. Roger Clemens was his usual superb self, while Aaron Sele (3.83 ERA) and Joe Hesketh (4.26 ERA) were serviceable behind him. Other than those three, however, no other pitcher who made more than six starts had an ERA under 5.94. The teamwide ERA of 4.93 was 9th in the AL.

With an anemic offense and below-average pitching staff, it was clear the Red Sox had a lot of work to do when baseball returned.