BOSTON -- John Farrell has managed the Boston Red Sox for five seasons, and more often than not, when things aren't going well, he offers a familiar solution for how they can turn it around.
"We've got to lead from the mound."
That rings especially true this season, when the Red Sox have scored fewer runs than any of the American League playoff teams. And at a time when the Sox are closing in on clinching the AL East title, their starting pitching is letting them down in a big, old way.
On Thursday night, it was Eduardo Rodriguez's turn to throw up a stink bomb. Facing the blazing hot Houston Astros, he allowed as many runs (five) as outs recorded in 1⅔ innings, his shortest start since July 20, 2015. The Red Sox were pounded 12-2 by their likely opponent in the division series. Instead of surging into the playoffs, they have lost three of four games.
It would be worse, too, but for the graciousness of the New York Yankees, who lost at home to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. The Red Sox's magic number to clinch the division is down to 1, and with the Yankees playing a matinee Friday, the crowning moment could arrive before Doug Fister takes the mound at Fenway Park shortly after 7 p.m.
"The Yankees did us a favor today," shortstop Xander Bogaerts said. "If they had won, it would've been a little more tough. But we can either win it by we win or them losing, so we're kind of in a good situation right now."
Not really. The Red Sox might have a 98.9 percent chance of winning the AL East, according to Fangraphs, but if the starting pitching doesn't improve from the last turn through the rotation, their odds of winning a playoff series is about 0.0.
For most of the season, the Red Sox have been carried by their pitching. Entering play Thursday, they had the second-lowest team ERA in the league (3.66) and the fourth lowest by a starting rotation (4.05). But over the past five games, Fister, Drew Pomeranz, Chris Sale, Rick Porcello and Rodriguez have combined to allow 23 runs in only 19⅔ innings.
All together now: Yuck.
"It's been a tough turn this time through," Farrell said. "The numbers speak for themselves."
Pomeranz put the Sox in a 5-2 bind in the second inning Monday night against Toronto. Thanks to Sale, they fell behind 5-1 by the fifth inning Tuesday night. On Wednesday night, they rallied from a Porcello-induced 3-0 deficit.
Even during the recently completed 8-1 road trip, the starters dropped the Red Sox down an early hole far too often. They trailed 4-2 when Sale left in the sixth inning Sept. 15 at Tampa Bay, 4-0 in the second inning with Fister on the mound Sept. 18 in Baltimore, and 4-1 in the first inning behind Porcello on Sept. 22 in Cincinnati.
That's no way to live, especially if you have visions of advancing deep into the playoffs.
"Any time you go through spells or turns like this, it comes down to consistent location and command," Farrell said. "It's a matter of going out and executing pitches. There's not a magic elixir to this."
There also isn't a giant switch that can be flipped once the regular season ends and the playoffs begin. And with the way the Red Sox are pitching and the Astros are hitting, a division series between the teams is looking like a colossal mismatch.
The Astros lead the league in runs (886) and have scored 11 or more runs in each of the past four games, a franchise record and the second-longest streak in the majors since the 1913 New York Giants. There's no break in a lineup that features George Springer, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa at the top and former All-Star catcher Brian McCann in the No. 9 spot.
"Our seven through nine has been just as good as a lot of teams' middle of the order," Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. "The run-scoring has come often, it's come pretty consistently. We haven't been shut down a ton, time after time after time. When you have good hitters and guys who feed off one another, it's fun to see."
Given the way Fister, Porcello and Rodriguez have pitched, the Sox can't feel overly confident with any of them in a Game 3. Even Pomeranz, the likely Game 2 starter, has been a five- or six-inning pitcher for most of the season, and his exit after two innings Monday night was more than a little unnerving, especially since he's only a few innings shy of his career-high total of 170⅔.
Farrell admitted the last turn through the rotation might even change the Red Sox's plans for their postseason roster.
"We recognize where guys are in terms of workloads, the way they’ve thrown of late, early exits," Farrell said. "That kind of starts to factor in, and are there multiple-inning [relievers] needed more so than one-inning guys. Those are all things we’ll take into account."
In a best-case scenario, the Red Sox clinch the division Friday and rest Pomeranz and Sale on the final two days of the season. Their arms, to say nothing of their heads, could probably use a breather.
But this could all be moot by next weekend. If the Red Sox don't lead from the mound, they will go nowhere.
"[The starters] have helped get us to the point we're at, and I'm sure they can help take us to where we want to be,” right fielder Mookie Betts said. “I'm not really concerned about that at all."