The Red Sox are crumbling, and the Rays are right on their heels

Daniel Bard, after giving up five runs in the eighth inning to the Toronto Blue Jays on September 7th. He is one of many Red Sox struggling. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darren Calabrese)

The past week and a half has not been a fun one for the Boston Red Sox and their fans. The team has lost nine of their past 11 games. Usually superb set-up man Daniel Bard has imploded twice during the stretch, including an outing in which he allowed five eighth-inning runs against Toronto to lose 11-10. He hasn’t been the only pitcher struggling. Almost everyone has. And the hitting has been painfully inconsistent; 24 runs were scored in two games against the Blue Jays, and only 12 have been mustered in the four games since.

Their play in Sunday’s series finale against the Rays summed up how they have performed on this seven-game road trip. Starting pitcher Jon Lester, the current rotation’s only hope, lasted just four innings and threw a whopping 111 pitches. He surrendered four runs, but the team was within striking distance in the top of the fifth. Mike Aviles started the frame with a single, and with Jacoby Ellsbury and other stars due up scoring a few runs wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. But Aviles was promptly picked off first. And then, of course, Ellsbury singles.

Nothing came of it, and in the bottom of the inning .226 hitting B.J. Upton crushed a two-out grand slam. The score was now 8-1. Hopes to come back and avoid a series sweep were slim. The Red Sox didn’t score the rest of the way.

Boston began the road-trip eight games ahead of Tampa Bay. Due to their woes in both the pitching and hitting departments, they head home to Fenway Park with just a 3 1/2 game advantage over their AL East foe. At the beginning of September, making the playoffs was almost a sure-thing. Now, holding off the Rays will be an incredibly difficult task. And, given Boston’s play, it’s hard to believe they deserve to.

The season is a long one, spanning six months and amassing 162 games. Days off are rare, especially in the closing months, and any team can be tough to handle on a nightly basis. It can be a grind. Stumbling late is a regular happening for contenders; even the Yankees have lost four in a row. Yet, Boston looks especially tired. Their pitchers don’t have the stuff to get hitters out and far too many of their hitters are in slumps. They are in a deep, dark hole, and there isn’t a sign they can get out anytime soon.

There is still time to, but a switch will have to be flipped immediately. They have 16 games left, and four of those are against these same Rays at Fenway Park beginning this coming Thursday. Boston has to right the ship in a two-game set against Toronto and head into that all-important series on a high note, but it is difficult to be confident in their abilities to get back on track.

The hitting may come around. Jacoby Ellsbury, Marco Scutaro, and Josh Reddick have been swinging very hot bats; Scutaro, in particular, owned the Blue Jays, his former team, by going a stunning 11-17. The rest of Boston’s offense is too talented not to join these three, but the pitching could even doom a potent, well-balanced hot streak over the coming weeks.

The staring pitchers for the next four games runs as follows: knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, mediocre John Lackey, the even more worrisome Andrew Miller, and rookie Kyle Weiland. The combined September ERA for these four pitchers is a dreadful 6.17.

The numbers are similarly nightmarish for the bullpen. Closer Jonathan Papelbon has held the opposition scoreless this month, but the rest of the relief core has had trouble giving him the ball with a lead. Six of the nine relievers the Red Sox have used carry an ERA at or above 6.00 this month. Overall, the bullpen has allowed 33 runs and relinquished nine home-runs in 11 September games.

Considering how terrible Boston has been, manager Terry Francona must be sweating up a storm. It’s not as if Francona has players ready to come off injuries and help. Ace Josh Beckett may be out for a while with a sprained ankle, and fellow star Clay Buchholz isn’t expected back this season. This means Francona has to go with the group he has–notably the rotation he has. There is no alternative. I want to be optimistic, but there isn’t a reason to believe the downward spiral won’t continue.

In a piece by The Boston Globe‘s Nick Cafardo, Rays third baseman Evan Longoria said he thinks his team can make this race an “interesting” one. They can do a lot more than that.

We want to give the Red Sox and Yankees, who we play a lot the rest of the way, a run for their money,” he added. “We don’t try to do too much. We go into every game thinking what we have to do to win. With our pitching, we can hang in games, and if we can get some timely hitting, we can keep doing this.

It’s a team thing. A complete team thing. We’re not going to think too far ahead. We have to win tomorrow [Sunday].’’ To the surprise of few, they did.

Boston should have this mentality. They should be able to think one game at a time, to rely on pitching, to get timely hitting and win games. It used to be that way. Now, though, they are the deer in the headlights. They can say they are in a little funk and that they will get out of it, but their play suggests otherwise. And the Rays are breathing down their neck.

The Red Sox are in trouble. They are feeling the pressure. They aren’t clicking. And unless they have a reawakening in every department the team that has three MVP candidates and was once on pace to win 100 games will be on the outside looking in come playoff time.