McAdam: Add a slumping offense to Red Sox' recent woes

NEW YORK -- Still troubled by the prospects of the Red Sox bullpen having to do battle with some of the game's best lineups in October?  Fearful the Sox' relievers lack the experience or the mettle to survive the postseason gauntlet?

Those problems haven't been cured -- not by a long shot -- but in what may be a classic case of deflection, the Red Sox of late have come up with another thing about which to fret: namely, their offense, tops in the big leagues for much of the season, has sputtered significantly in recent weeks.

Only twice in the last 11 games have the Red Sox scored more than five runs. In four of those 11 games, they've scored two runs or fewer.

The trouble begins at the top of the lineup. Mookie Betts, who returned to action Wednesday night after sitting out Tuesday with some soreness in his left side, is 1-for-13 and hasn't homered since Aug. 30. Andrew Benintendi, who follows him in the lineup, is in a deeper funk, with just two hits in his last 23 at-bats and only one homer in his last 31 games, 122 at-bats ago.

J.D. Martinez, who typically hits third, is rolling along, with a three-hit night on Wednesday, but, he, too, has slowed down when it comes to power, with a mere three homers in his last 96 at-bats. Frequent cleanup hitter Mitch Moreland, a notoriously streaky hitter, is in the midst of one of his patented funks, with his batting average at a season-low of .244. His last homer came almost a month ago, back on Aug. 22.

Sensing a pattern here? The Red Sox power switch has been flipped to the off position. This month, in 17 games, the Red Sox have hit just 11 homers, ranking them dead last in all of baseball for the month.

They've homered in only half of their 16 games this month, and if you don't think that's significant, consider this: for the season, when the Red Sox hit at least one homer, they're 80-20, for an .800 winning percentage; conversely, when they don't homer, they're 23-29, a winning percentage of .442.

In other words, when the Sox don't homer, they resemble the punchless offense from a year ago when they were last in the American League in that category.

Alex Cora, hardly one to panic, dismisses this recent rut as temporary and he's likely right. It's not like Betts, Benintendi and Moreland have forgotten how to hit, or that Martinez has lost the ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark.

Cora, who famously urged his team to be more aggressive at the plate this season and to seek good pitches with which to do damage, has seen his offense drift into passivity of late.

That's been demonstrated in the team's inability to produce with runners on base in this series. The Sox are a woeful 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position through the first two games.

"There have been a few at-bats early where we haven't been able to cash in,'' said Cora. "It's always to get the lead. We're a pretty good team when we do that.''

As for the decline in power, Cora acknowledged that his team currently features "a few guys struggling. We've faced some good pitching, too.''

Indeed, the Sox have had to go head-to-head with some quality starters of late, including Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom of the Mets, followed by J.A. Happ and Luis Severino over the last two nights. Quality starters have a way of cooling the most menacing lineups.

This month, opposing starters have compiled a 2.88 ERA against the Sox, again indicating that the Sox haven't been able to do damage in the first half of the game and are too often playing from behind.

"I do think sometimes we're getting too passive, taking too many pitches right down the middle,'' Cora said. "I think they're bad takes. (We need) to get back to looking for pitches in the middle of the zone and do damage with them. I think that's very important for us.''

Even the best teams encounter downturns and experience slumps. This latest stretch could be a combination of things: normal fatigue, which is bound to set in in September; drifting focus, another issue related to the grind of the season; and having to face some good staffs and quality starters.

It won't last. The Sox lineup features too many good hitters to be this ineffective for too long.

But in the final days and weeks, it's one more issue to be resolved. And it gives fans worried sick about the bullpen something else over which to obsess.