Seven questions to kick off September (and perhaps kickstart the Red Sox offense?):

1. What’s the difference between ‘We’re better than this’ and ‘We have to be better?’

Whenever the Red Sox have struggled, manager Alex Cora would offer some variation of “We’re better than this.” He said as much after Monday and Tuesday losses to the Mets in New York, too. But on Wednesday, after the Mets had completed their sweep and the Sox had fallen back to .500 (70-70) for the first time since June 14 (35-35), Cora said something else.

“We’re a .500 team. We’re playing .500 baseball. I don’t think that’s good enough,” he told reporters.

That may not sound drastically different from “We’re better than this,” but it is.

Those were the words of a manager whose team had just lost five games in a row for the first time all season.

A manager who had spent the week reshuffling a lineup that stopped scoring runs.

A manager whose bullpen can’t stop giving away the farm.

A manager who, like his team, seems resigned to their third consecutive postseason-less October.

The baseball season is a marathon. It’s also a roller coaster, and the Sox, as Frank Sinatra famously sang, have “been up, and down, and over, and out.”

Over their first 52 games, they went 26-26. That was understandable – given the several major early-season injuries – if not frustrating for a team that had some of the best starting pitching in the game early on.

Then, they went 27-17 over their next 44 games, the best record in the American League. They were one of the hottest offenses in the game. Boston went into the All-Star break on a high note: holding the third American League Wild Card and very close to moving up to the second or even first. Cora said they were going to get “greedy,” and his division title goal didn’t seem entirely unrealistic.

But over 44 games since the break, the Red Sox are 17-27, the third-worst record in the Majors. They’ve looked like a completely different squad. All three big-league arms acquired at the trade deadline – starter James Paxton and relievers Lucas Sims and Luis García – went down with injuries within the month. They’ve lost 11 of their last 14 games, if you include the suspended June 26 game they resumed and lost on Aug. 26.

Cora is correct. It’s not good enough. It’s not good, period.

2. Does Rafael Devers have an obligation to the media?

As he sat by his locker in the visitors’ clubhouse at Citi Field on Tuesday night, Rafael Devers was informed by someone from Red Sox media relations that reporters wished to speak with him. He didn’t decline the request, but after just over an hour – most of which he spent sitting at his locker mere feet away from the media he knew were waiting for him – he left the clubhouse without making himself available.

It’s not surprising that Devers didn’t want to speak. The Red Sox are in a brutal stretch and had lost yet another game. He’s been dealing with shoulder soreness throughout the season and is trying to break out of a major offensive slump. He prefers to be a team leader in the way that he plays, rather than with his words, and when both he and the team aren’t doing well, he blames himself.

“He cares about winning,” Cora said. “Probably right now without going into details and talking to him about it, he feels probably the burden of the offense. This is something J.D. (Martinez) always talked about it, and other guys: ‘When I’m not going, we’re not going.’ It’s tough because it doesn’t work that way.”

Players aren’t required to speak to the media, and Devers rarely does. Cora described the slugger’s willingness to do so this season as “on and off.” It’s been somewhat surprising, given how outspoken Devers was early in spring training.

Devers is never going to be David Ortiz or Xander Bogaerts, two of his mentors who were known for being accountable, genial, and available to reporters throughout their careers in Boston. Ortiz said as much during his annual visit to spring training last year. There, he told reporters that he planned to be more involved with Devers moving forward.

“The one thing that people need to know about Raffy, he is shy! You know, he’s like a big kid,” Ortiz said. “He don’t have the personality that I have, and I’m never gonna ask him to have it. It is not fair to ask anyone to be exactly the same way.”

However, Ortiz also acknowledged that Devers was in a unique position as the highest-paid player in franchise history.

“Sometimes players don’t feel comfortable dealing with it. In this case, it’s gotta be different because he’s the face of the organization, the face of the franchise,” Ortiz said. “So at some point you need to start learning how to get there.”

Even if Devers never gets all the way there, both he and the Red Sox could’ve handled Tuesday night differently. All he had to say was no. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

3. What happened to the Red Sox offense?

There are slumps, and then there are SLUMPS. The Sox are in the latter category in a bad way.

Over the last two weeks or so, the offense has been silent as the grave. They scored 15 runs over their six-game road trip to Detroit and New York. Seven of those runs came in the first game, Boston’s only win of the trip; they scored no more than three runs in any of the subsequent games.

In 140 games before the break, the Red Sox averaged 4.85 men left on base per game; since the break, it’s up to 6.75 per game. They’ll enter Friday with 976 LOB total, sixth-worst in the Majors and second only to the Yankees in the AL.

Overall, Boston is still one of the better offenses in the game this season, even after a spate of underwhelming offensive contests. But where have the bats gone recently? And can they get them back?

4. What should be the top priority for the Red Sox this offseason?

A month ago, I would’ve said pitching.

It’s still a need; it’s always a need.

But clearly this lineup could use a big bat, too.

5. Who’s winning awards this year?

My finalist predictions:

Silver Slugger: Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, Connor Wong

Gold Glove: Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela (Utility)

Rookie of the Year: Rafaela

6. Can the Red Sox finish with a winning record?

For most of the summer, the Red Sox looked like a team cruising to a winning record. But as their division pipe dream and legitimate Wild Card chances shriveled up, merely staying above .500 has become the goal.

The Red Sox haven’t finished a season with a winning record since 2021, when they made an unexpected postseason run from Wild Card to the ALCS. They’ve posted losing records and finished last in the AL East in the two subsequent seasons.

If the bats can’t find themselves soon, it’ll be a crushing three-peat. Even after being sellers at the trade deadline, the Tampa Bay Rays (67-74) and Toronto Blue Jays (69-71) are close behind Boston in the division standings. And the Red Sox still have series against both division foes before the season ends on Sept. 29.

7. Will Fenway Sports Group buy the Celtics?

Principal owner John Henry recently gave an interview in which he said FSG’s portfolio is full. FSG thinking it would be a good idea to take on another Boston sports team when fans are already so unhappy with the way the group is running the Red Sox. But when has something as trivial as customer satisfaction ever stopped anyone? (Sarcasm.)

Not to mention, Amazon billionaire – and rumored Celtics bidder – Jeff Bezos can out-bid FSG in a heartbeat.