When things are going well in Boston, there aren’t many more intimidating environments for an opposing club to step into than Fenway Park.

But lately, Fenway has become a much friendlier place.

Six years removed from the club’s last World Series championship in 2018 the Red Sox have settled into a pattern of mediocrity, and interest in the team has waned as a result. So far this season the club has announced only one sellout — on Opening Day — and with so many tickets up for grabs, opposing fans have happily swooped in to fill the void.

Now, with the weather getting nicer and school wrapping up for the year, opposing fan takeovers are becoming impossible to ignore.

This weekend a huge contingent of Yankees fans traveled to Boston and have made their presence felt, frequently belting out loud “Let’s go Yankees” chants at a volume and frequency that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago.

That came after fans of the Philadelphia Phillies inundated Fenway Park earlier this week, and before that we saw similar crowds surge in from Baltimore, Atlanta and other cities.

The Red Sox still get plenty of support on the road too, but until recently Fenway Park was a fortress, and manager Alex Cora acknowledged that the phenomenon is a product of their recent performance.

“I think people are more willing to travel and follow their teams, it’s not an excuse, it should be a lot better here as far as our fans showing up for us, but at the same time we haven’t been good for a while,” Cora said. “So there’s a balance and hopefully sooner rather than later we can change that, change the narrative and have it be 80-20%.”

Whether the increased number of road fans has affected Boston’s performance is impossible to say, but it can’t be debated the Red Sox haven’t played well at home recently. This season the club was 16-20 at home entering Saturday, including a 1-11 mark in series openers at Fenway Park.

Even dating back to 2019, a stretch that includes three last place finishes but also a deep playoff run, the Red Sox entered Saturday 196-195 at Fenway Park, almost exactly .500.

But what do players think when an opposing team’s chants break out at Fenway? Tanner Houck, one of Boston’s longest tenured players and currently its best pitcher, offered a nuanced perspective.

“Crowds, good or bad, supply energy,” Houck said. “The other night when I gave up three runs to (Kyle) Schwarber on the big hit, you heard this place erupt from all the Philly fans. Being in that moment it’s not a good thing by any means, you never want that to happen, you want your side going nuts after you get out of a situation like that, but crowds can supply energy for you, for each individual and I enjoy it.”

Houck noted that when he debuted in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic there weren’t any fans allowed in the stands, and it wasn’t until midway through 2021 that he experienced any sort of big league crowd. So it’s not something he takes for granted.

“It adds that element into the stadium that we’ve all dreamed about since we were little kids playing T-ball,” he said.