Can this offense carry the team in the postseason?
In the 2016 season, our offense carried this team. With David Ortiz and MVP candidate Mookie Betts, this offense seemed unstoppable.
This year has been a completely different story. Our power has been severely diminished with the loss of Ortiz. Our offense has also been terribly inconsistent all year. They have been relying on timely base hits with men on base to score runs. Our power has not been able to give us that boost when we needed it most. Our team average has been a disappointing .258 and only had 168 home runs.
I know that people say that pitching wins you championships, but you need some offense to go along with it. Betts has not been the same hitter, so how do we know if he can pull us through? Our best hitter throughout the year has been Eduardo Nunez and he is just coming off of the disabled list.
Who is going to be that hitter that we can count on to get us out of a hole like Ortiz could last year? Mookie does not seem to have the pop he had last year, and Hanley Ramirez has resorted back to his 2014 self. Can Devers have an Andruw Jones-like postseason and put the team on his back? Can Nunez jump off of the disabled list and be the Nunez from July? Our offense has been missing that pop this year and if our offense falls into a pattern of not letting the balls fall, we could be in a world of trouble and see our postseason hopes end before they have even started.