Inconsistent offense continues to plague Red Sox

Exactly three weeks remain in the regular season, and in a sense, not much has changed for the Red Sox.

Even after Sunday’s 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay – and the Yankees’ win over Texas – they remain in first place in the East by a fairly comfortable margin.

Their starting pitching is a strength, even if Rick Porcello did little to cement his place in the post-season rotation with his five-inning outing Sunday. The bullpen ranks among the best in either league, the outfield defense is unmatched and the baserunning, while occasionally suspect, has produced far more than it has cost.

But 142 games into the season, the Red Sox’ offense remains a conundrum. Can it be trusted in the post-season? That’s uncertain.

On Friday night and Saturday night, the Sox pounded out nine runs each and won going away. They scored early, added on, and held off the Rays with ease.

Sunday was a different story. The Sox needed the help of the Rays – in the form of two walks and an error – to score their one run in the second. They never again mounted much of a threat, with just two baserunners reaching scoring position over the final seven innings. Each of their five hits was a single.

An average of eight runs in the previous three wins. One lousy run in Sunday’s loss.

Feast or famine.

“You can say there have been wide swings (of offensive production),’’ acknowledged John Farrell. “We’ve seen that. We’ve lived it...We’ve probably searched high and low for a little bit more consistency, inside of a week, inside of a series. But there have been wide swings.’’

“I think it’s called baseball,’’ chuckled Mitch Moreland, in an effort to explain the offense’s inconsistencies.

“We’ve played well all season. We’re right where we want to be, going into the home stretch and our destiny is right ahead of us. I don’t think we’re going to hang our heads about one game in a three-game series when we won the series. We’re in a great spot. Today was one of those days; we’ll chalk it up to (it being a well-pitched game) and be ready to go Tuesday.’’

To be fair, perhaps Sunday isn’t the best time to take this team’s offensive temperature. They were without their most consistent offensive performer, Eduardo Nunez, who was nursing a knee injury, and Dustin Pedroia, who’s being carefully integrated back into the lineup as he recovers from a second DL stint for his knee. Hanley Ramirez, inconsistent as he can be, was also out of the lineup.

But here it is, mid-September, and the Red Sox remain completely unpredictable. Sunday marked the 21st time this season – or, on average, about once weekly – that the Sox scored one or no runs. (At the other end of the spectrum, they’ve scored five or more 60 times).

Much of their struggles have come because of their lack of home run power. The Sox may rank in the middle of the pack (seventh out of 15 teams) in runs scored, but they’re dead last in homers – and by a considerable margin. The Sox have 148; the 14th ranked team, Los Angeles, was at 159 going into play Sunday, and 13th team, the Seattle Mariners, are at 165, and can at least explain their total as a function of playing in the league’s most pitcher-friendly ballpark.

The absence of the long ball shows up most obviously when the Sox fall behind by multiple runs, as they did by the sixth and seventh inning Sunday. Without the ability to score two or three runs with one swing of the bat, the Sox are at a decided disadvantage.

“I think we’ve done alright without the so-called home run power that everybody’s been talking about all season,’’ Moreland said. “Right now, we’re in a great spot, with or without it. Not every team needs to rely on the home run to win games and we’ve proven that. We’ve got a lot of different ways that we’ve been able to (score) this year.

“I think we know who we are as a team, we know our identity and we’re trying to make the most of that.’’

Moreland’s right in this respect: the Red Sox have the third-best record in the A.L. and very likely going to win their division.

But on afternoons like Sunday, there exists the nagging feeling that the team’s famously up-and-down offense could well preclude a long October run, when the pitching is better and the opportunities to score become even more scarce.