Boston doesn't have the firepower to win slugfests anymore

[cruzg24]

These are the not the same Boston Red Sox anymore, and they have not been the same for quite some time. So if you are expecting them to overcome five-run deficits at the most challenging time of the year, you are overlooking how this team arrived here in the first place.
Two days after Josh Beckett made like a piñata, Jon Lester went out for Game 3 of the American League Championship Series and dug the Red Sox a 5-0 hole before the game was three innings old. Subsequent events at Fenway Park were almost entirely irrelevant because the Red Sox do not have the firepower to overcome such deficits anymore, and they shouldn't have to win by scores of 9-8 and 10-9 when they send their Nos. 1 and 2 starters to the mound.
End of story.
"I think anytime you're going up against a quality opponent, the concern is for your club to execute pitches," Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell said in the wake of the Sox' 9-1 pasting at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays Monday. "I wouldn't say it's about any one of our pitchers specifically. At this time of year, there are no flukes and it's our job to remain committed to the pitches thrown. I'm not saying that we're not doing that right now, but you have to be consistent with your approach on the mound."
The offense, or lack thereof? Now there's a real news flash: the Red Sox have trouble scoring against good pitching. Excluding Game 2 at Tropicana Field over the weekend -- when Scott Kazmir played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and Rays pitchers walked 10 -- the Red Sox are batting .194 in the postseason. They have scored 21 runs in six games, an average of 3.5 per game. Manny Ramírez and Mike Lowell are not walking through that door, and David Ortiz really has not been himself for the better part of the last two seasons.
Source: Boston.com

[cruzg24]

Ortiz, Ellsbury, and Varitek aren't hitting. They need to step it up if they want to win.