The Red Sox ended June on a bit of an upswing—winning three straight games. Nevertheless, they are still
dead last in the AL East. And, they are 2 games further out of first place than they were at the end of May. Perhaps that is why our
Dalton Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) participants were not ready to break out the champagne.
The June DJIA fell marginally (2.3 points) to
67.3. The drop in the Index was fueled—yet again—by
very low levels of confidence in the team's starting pitching (a raw score of 34.2—although
up some since May). Relief pitching came in at 48.3—a big drop from the May reading. The offense scored a lot better this month—jumping to 47.2. Team defense, however, dropped to a raw score of 49.2.
FenwayNation offers its readers this monthly reading of "The Mood Of The Nation" through our exclusive
Dalton Jones Industrial Average—which 'crunches' all of those raw scores into a single Index Value. Named for the all-time Red Sox pinch-hit leader, the average is a composite index of four key metrics:
starting pitching,
relief pitching,
total offense and
total defense. The editors invite readers from around the world to weigh in every month on the state of the team. The Index number—and its fluctuation up or down—has proven, over the years, to be a pretty accurate bellwether of actual team status.
