By the numbers: Red Sox at the midway point

BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox have hit the midway point of the season, and no one really knows if they're a team worth investing in at the trade deadline. Every stretch of inspiring play has been met with a longer stretch of discouraging baseball, leaving Boston at the bottom of the AL East.

The Red Sox are just 40-41 after Wednesday night's 6-2 loss to the Marlins at Fenway Park. They've been an incredibly uneven team throughout the campaign; a solid offense that gets decent pitching on occasion, but is ultimately sunk by the team's abhorrent defense. 

Boston sits in last place in a fairly stacked American League East, 14 games behind the first-place Rays and four games behind the disappointing Blue Jays for fourth. However, the Sox are still flirting with the wild card, sitting just four games back of those very same Blue Jays. (All three wild card spots are currently occupied by an AL East team.) They still have two other teams -- the Astros and the Angels -- to leapfrog before catching Toronto, so the Sox still have their work cut out for them.

Maybe the return of Trevor Story will help. Perhaps Chaim Bloom will make a move to strengthen the rotation. If you're the most optimistic of the optimistic, the Red Sox are still in the thick of it for a spot in October.

But more times than not, this feels like another lost season that will go by the wayside sometime in August. The numbers at the midway point make that pretty clear.

Here's how Boston currently ranks in the majors after 81 games.

Offense

Batting Average: .260 (8th in MLB)

OBP: .331 (6th)

Slugging PCT: .423 (9th)

OPS: .753 (7th)    

Home Runs: 84 (21st)

Doubles: 180 (1st)

Runs: 397 (8th)

OK. Not bad. Not bad at all. The Red Sox can score some runs.

Unfortunately, they only have a plus-8 run differential, good for 16th in baseball. Not great. Not great at all.

Rafael Devers is leading the team with 19 homers and 61 RBI, but he's only hitting .245. Alex Verdugo is leading the way in batting average at .302 -- the only everyday Sox hitter above .300. Masataka Yoshida is close at .297, but he's followed up his incredible May (slashing .354/.410/.552) by hitting just .256 in June.

The Red Sox are essentially a Top 10 offense, but one that doesn't hit for much power. Maybe Story can bring a little more pop into the mix in the coming months.

Pitching

ERA: 4.48 (23rd)

K/9 Innings: 8.66 (17th)

HR/9 innings: 1.31 (23rd)

BB/9 innings: 2.91 (5th)

Hard Hit Percentage (per statcast): 40.1% (20th)  

Starters ERA: 4.89 (26th)

IP by Starters: 406.2 (21st)

Now things are starting to take a turn. The bullpen has actually been varying degrees of decent to good, but Boston's starting pitching (outside of Brayan Bello) has been wildly inconsistent. 

Remember when Corey Kluber was the Opening Day starter? He's now buried on the IL after being banished to the bullpen. Chris Sale was showing some promise before an injury sent him to the sideline, and Tanner Houck had shown some flashes before a line drive broke his face. Garrett Whitlock also fits into the inconsistent mold, either holding opponents to a run or two or getting completely rocked.

And at the moment, Boston does not have a No. 5 starter. It's kind of wild that a team with an $181 million payroll has to rely on a bullpen day over the next few weeks.

Bello has been the saving grace of the rotation, and is the brightest ray of sunshine for the future. But he's only 24 and isn't capable of carrying an entire staff yet. We'll also have to see how he looks late in the season.

Again, the bullpen has been OK when Alex Cora hasn't had to rely on Bloom's latest bargain bin pickup. Boston relievers are in the middle of the pack in most stats, though they rarely strike anyone out, ranking 24th in baseball with 275 K's over 308.1 innings.

A little more consistency out of their starters and the Red Sox may have something here. But the starting pitching has left a lot to be desired.

But hey, at least it's not as bad as the team's defense.

Defense

Outs Above Average: -25 (30th)

Defensive Runs Saved: -18 (25th)

Errors: 53 (29th)

Throwing errors: 31 (30th) 

Oh dear. Here's where the wheels come falling off the bus. And honestly, that error total is a little low thanks to some generous hometown scoring on numerous occasions.

The Red Sox have allowed 20 unearned runs this season. Only the Phillies (24) and the Angels (22) have more, while the Tigers have also given up 20 unearned runs.

Having a real shortstop probably would have helped, considering Kiké Hernandez leads everyone in baseball with 14 errors. At least he hasn't committed one in the last two weeks -- when Cora moved him back to the outfield.

The Red Sox would probably be right in the thick of the wild card race if they had anything resembling a decent defense. But they are far from decent on the diamond, and it's really brought down the team's success overall.