Yes, it's only 26 games, which translates into less than one-sixth of the season. Yes, the season doesn't officially hit the one-month mark until Saturday. And yes, the Red Sox have played far more games on the road than they have at home.
But if you're willing to rationalize all of the above, and preach the long view, perhaps it's time to consider some other evidence that can't be so easily refuted.
Starting with this: Manager Alex Cora is fond of stressing the importance of winning series, which is an approach that's tough to argue. If you win the vast majority of your series, you're likely going to play better than .600 ball. You don't need to have long winning streaks, or necessarily have stretches where a team wins 18 of 20.
But if you consistently take two out of three, two out of three, two out of three, it's going to leave you in good stead. Even the occasional losing streaks, which must be accounted for, won't derail a team that regularly wins the majority of its series.
What then, are we to make of this: after their 8-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels Thursday, the Red Sox have dropped five series in a row. They lost the last series of the last homestand, dropped all three series on their recent 10-game road trip, and began the current homestand with yet another series loss.
Of the eight series they've played to date, the Red Sox are 1-6-1 with their only series win coming when they took the final two games of their second series of the season in Detroit.
"It's hard,'' said Cora, "because if you look at it, you can start going, 'Oh this game....' or 'That play...' But we'r enot cashing in, so it really doesn't matte.r I can walk you through each series and tell you, 'Oh, that pitch...' or 'This play..' or whatever, but in the end, you have to put a complete game together and we haven't been able to do that in a while.''
Already, the Red Sox find themselves 8.5 games in back of first-place New York. It may well be true that you can't win a division title in the first month or so of the season, but it may be possible to play yourself out of contention. And the Sox are seemingly in real danger of that happening.
"It's not ideal at all,'' acknowledged J.D. Martinez. "I think we're all aware of it. We're just playing well. When we hit, we don't pitch and when we pitch, we don't hit. Its a bad combo.''
Starter Rich Hill, who surely deserved a better fate after tossing five scoreless innings and allowing just one hit, noted that the Sox have to get down to granular-sized steps forward.
"The only way we're going to be back to where we need to be,'' said Hill, "is taking a smaller step than one game at a time (and instead making it) one pitch at a time, one swing at a time, and being able to make things small and not so big. The fact it is, whether it's a starting pitcher putting pressure on himself to go out there and putting up zeros for seven or eight innings, even thinking about that before the game, that mindset has to become one pitch at a time. That's the process part of it.
"What I see is, teams (in trouble) can go one of two ways -- either gravitate toward each other or start to move away. We really need to continue pulling for each other, as everybody is. We can look at the road trip that we had, and (say) a few games here or there and it could have been a completely different road trip. But the fact is, it wasn't. And we are where we are and have to dig ourselves out of this.''
Ironically, the starting rotation, which was thought to be somewhat suspect with Chris Sale sidelined for the first few months, has been superb. In the last 14 games, Sox starters have posted a 1.81 ERA. To put that into perspective, the only better 14-game span for starters in the last 20 years was in 2018 when they posted a 1.65 ERA in July and August.
Things aren't nearly as encouraging when it comes to either the lineup or the bullpen. Thursday's loss was the 13th time in the first 26 games that the Sox scored three runs or fewer. Unsurprisingly, they've lost 11 of those games.
As for the bullpen, the less said about it, the better. Presumably, Garrett Whitlock will soon return in relief and his presence should make things better. But just as Whitlock can't start and relieve, he also can't pitch every day. And the Sox don't have anybody else in whom they can entrust a late-inning lead.
The clubhouse was almost funereal after the shutout Thursday, with players shuffling through and leaving. The danger is, for all the problems on the field, the morale could go south and create an even tougher atmosphere. Already, fans are exhibiting a loss of patience with the club's direction, booing Trevor Story after he recorded his fourth strikeout in as many at-bats.
Lookout below.
"It's kind of what happens when you start going down these holes,'' said Martinez. "I think we've talked about it. We've all addressed it. Now it's up to guys going out and doing it, really.''
And soon. Or else.