BOSTON -- Just as was the case last season when the Manny Ramirez saga was weighing on the collective psyche of a troubled Red Sox clubhouse, the Boston baseball bunch is playing some of its worst baseball leading up to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.

The sluggish Sox have won only three of their last 11 games and dropped 3 ½ games behind the incendiary New York Yankees in the AL East standings following another listless defeat at the hands of an inferior AL West team in Oakland – the Sox are 9-18 against the AL West this season – and the team is screaming out for some roster improvements.

Last year’s situation was clearly different as Ramirez’s defiant attitude and contract squabbles mixed to create a toxic cloud over the Sox clubhouse, but this year’s edition of the Red Stockings have their own issues to solve.

This time around Jason Bay and Kevin Youkilis are locked in slumps smack dab in the middle of Boston’s batting order, and every starting pitcher outside of Jon Lester and Josh Beckett has smacked head-long into a major rough patch when it comes to their turn in the starting rotation.

“It all comes down to starting pitching,” said Sox catcher Jason Varitek. “That’s what got us to where we were before. It’s not like we were scoring 15 runs (a game)."

The catcalls for Victor Martinez to bolster a sagging offense -- or Roy Halladay to help form a seemingly unbeatable starting trio along with Beckett and Lester – are getting louder and more unified each night the Olde Towne Team finds a new and more infuriating way to drop a ballgame.

Hearing the Sox Captain – the certified conscience and Heart of the Soul of the team for over a decade – talk about starting pitching with that kind of gravitas should give out all the answers needed from those sharing stalls inside Yawkey Way. Bringing in Martinez would disrupt playing time in all corners of the roster as David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Varitek and even Youkilis – not to mention Adam LaRoche – would all need to share time on the bench in order to make room for the switch-hitting Martinez in the lineup.

Could V-Mart help a slumping Sox offense with his .297 career batting average and significant power bat? Of course the 30-year-old could, but there’s just as good a chance that Ortiz, Drew and Bay all bounce back strongly over the final two months and help carry Boston with adequate offense through September.

There’s more and more talk from the Sox camp about the importance of a classic baseball credo, “the purpose of the game is only to score more runs than your opposition”. In some cases, like the Man-Ram and Big Papi-led Boston offense of five years ago, the Sox could simply overwhelm their opposition with a lethal, grinding offense supported by a pair of strong starting pitchers and an adequate bullpen.

But there’s also the chance to acquire a starter in Halladay, who yearns to pitch in the playoffs for the first time in his career and ranks that as a top priority ahead of money and looming free agency, for a steep price. Much less would be needed out of Boston’s aging offensive pieces if the Sox could throw a trio of Beckett, Lester and Halladay into the mix along with a lockdown bullpen that’s been among the best in the Majors this season.

Hence, the Sox could score significantly less runs if they also had a pitching staff that specialized in throwing up zeroes across the board. 

Sox GM Theo Epstein always does a commendable job of ignoring the “sound and fury” surrounding his baseball team, and the Sox are deftly exploring every last avenue to improve a baseball club with some clear trouble areas.

“I think there’s definite frustration,” said Sox third baseman Mike Lowell. “I don’t think there’s panic. We definitely want to play better as a team, that’s for sure.”

The Sox are still 1 ½ games over the Texas Rangers for the AL Wild Card spot and situated in a pretty good spot heading into the final two months of the baseball season, but they sure look like a ballclub on the brink – a team in need of something to potentially put them over the top this season.

As Lowell said, there isn’t any panic.

Epstein, assistant general manager Jed Hoyer, Ben Cherington, Mike Hazen and scouting director Jason MacLeod have put together an abundant crop of talented prospects throughout their minor league system, and there’s a new generation of players with names like Tazawa and Kelly rapidly rising through the system. There is both depth and quality, and there are able bodies and golden arms ready to step in should the Sox part, however hesitantly, with young prospects in exchange for Halladay and a legitimate shot at a World Series title this fall.

The Red Sox rightfully covets their prospects and – under Epstein’s control – haven’t really surrendered many of their prized young ballplayers in a prospects-for-proven veterans deal at the deadline. Matt Murton was involved in the Nomar Garciaparra trade and Engel Beltre was a highly regarded low-level prospect involved in the Eric Gagne deal back in 2007, but neither was considered the crown jewel of the system as Clay Buchholz has been over the last three seasons.

With a stacked minor league system and the ability replenish talent with a tried and true drafting and development system, now is the time to change that patter of behavior. It’s time to utilize a serving of the prospects for one of their ultimate purposes – as chips to help fill other areas of need throughout the system.

Now is the time for the brilliant minds housed in the Yawkey Way executive offices to determine exactly what that “something” happens to be, and then use their considerable resources to seize it.