McAdam: Three thoughts on the worst week of the 2018 Red Sox season

Another loss (their third straight) and another losing streak (their second this week).

So, what's going on with the Red Sox? And how worried should you be?

Three thoughts:

1. This was inevitable.

As I wrote earlier this week, this was bound to happen at some point. No team -- none -- goes through an entire season without encountering a few speed bumps. The wonder is that it took this long for a stretch like this to arrive.

It's interesting that the Sox' skid has happened at almost exactly the same time as the Los Angeles Dodgers' cooldown took place last year -- in the final 10 days of August. The Dodgers saw the bottom fall out for a period of a few weeks late last August and into September, rebounded to clinch the division with ease and got all the way to Game 7 of the World Series before their season ended.

Same thing with the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won a record 116 regular season games. They dropped seven of 11 in June and five of nine in the waning days of the season. And the vaunted 1998 Yankees, winners of 114 games? They dropped six-of-eight in the second half of August, too.

Think of it: the Red Sox played 127 games into their schedule before encountering their second three-game losing streak of the season.

They couldn't continue playing a .700 pace over six months. Too much can happen. Pitchers get tired, hitters cool off, and the team collectively hits a wall. All of that has happened at once for the Red Sox.

2. It starts -- as it always does -- with the starting pitching.

It's almost certainly not a coincidence that the Red Sox have encountered this stretch while Chris Sale has been sidelined. Think Sale, who was pitching his best baseball of the season, could have been counted on to step up and stop a losing streak and act as the staff stopper?

Without Sale, the Sox have pressed two spot starters into duty -- Brian Johnson and Hector Velazquez -- while they also await the return of Eduardo Rodriguez.

For the first half of the season, a case could be made that Sale and Rodriguez were the two best starters in the rotation. With both on the DL, they've gotten exactly one (1) start from either of them in the last month. Surely, that's been a huge contributing factor. In the meantime, the rest of the rotation posted a 12.34 ERA in the weekend series at Tropicana Field.

When I asked Cora -- before the first three-game losing streak was complete last week -- why the Sox had avoided the usual pitfalls experienced by other teams, he didn't hesitate to point to the team's consistent starting pitching. With an offense that, until recently, been remarkably potent, the simple task of limiting the opposition to three or so runs meant almost a guaranteed win for big stretches of the schedule.

But that safety net has been removed. With Sale and Rodriguez on the DL, reinforcements struggling and some expected wear-and-tear having hit every other starter not named David Price, the Sox staff has come back to earth.

There's good news on the horizon. Rodriguez is set to throw six innings Monday for Pawtucket and is on schedule to pitch in Chicago next weekend. Meanwhile, Sale told The Boston Globe after Sunday's game that he's set to resume a throwing program Monday. He may be another two weeks away from returning, but the takeaway is that he's recovering and expected to be at full strength well before the playoffs arrive.

3) The lineup has experienced a slump.

The Red Sox just went an entire series in which they produced three lousy extra-base hits -- all of them doubles and have homered in only one of their previous eight games.

Their leadoff hitter nonpareil, Mookie Betts, has cooled in the last two weeks. He's regressed to a more passive approach at the plate and has fallen into the bad habit of striking out in his first plate appearance in six of his last eight games.

Without Betts getting on base -- Andrew Benintendi has similarly cooled (.227/.306/.295) in the last two weeks -- the Sox don't have their customary traffic for J.D. Martinez when he comes to the plate.

That won't continue. Betts and Benintendi are too accomplished to struggle for much longer. And when they resume getting on base at their previous clip, there will be plenty of run-scoring opportunities for the Sox. Moreover, the same Red Sox lineup that as recently as a week ago was fourth in homers hasn't suddenly forgotten the importance of power.

For now, the Sox have the worst of both worlds: they're not getting off to quick leads, which makes it hard for them to improve on their MLB-best record of 61-11 when they score first and their depleted starting rotation is often digging early-inning holes.

The good news? The schedule is about to deal them a break. The Sox have a day off Monday to rinse away the stink of their lost weekend in St. Petersburg, then begin a stretch of six games against two of the worst teams in baseball -- the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox.

If they're still scuffling a week from today, it will be cause for concern.

As for now? They were due.