Are the Boston Red Sox ripe for reinforcements, or are the last two games simply a blip on the radar?

The offense has been much, much better for Boston over the last two months, and a lot of the credit goes to guys who projected to be role players or Triple-A depth at the start of the season. It was beginning to look like an awkward roster dilemma, as the likes of Trevor Story, Roman Anthony, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were progressing through their rehab stints in need of roster spots.

Back-to-back shutouts, though, could be a wake-up call that the time is right for a little bit of change. And at the very least, we have to accept that as good as some of these unheralded hitters have been, it's not realistic to depend on them to carry the freight in October.

Red Sox's struggles come at interesting time

No one in their right mind wants Anthony in Triple-A a day longer than his recovery necessitates. He's one of the most talented bats in all of Major League Baseball when he's right, so he's in even if it means Mickey Gasper has to be returned to Triple-A at the end of the best week of his career.

Story is a different case study. He's been floundering on his rehab stint offensively, and was one of the worst hitters in the sport for the first month and a half of the regular season. The best case for his reinstatement is the shaky defense of Andruw Monasterio at shortstop, but we all remember how Story's arm let him down in September last year during a stretch of six errors in seven games.

Still, this offense could use a shake-up. And it could also use better performances from surefire starters than guys like Wilyer Abreu, Adley Rutschman, and Ceddanne Rafaela have given them this week.

Yes, it's been encouraging to see the likes of Gasper, Monasterio, Nick Sogard, and Anthony Seigler help guide the team to a hot streak all summer, and two of them unfortunately need to give way by Sept. 1 if all three of the rehabbers are going to come back. But the last two games have been a reminder that talent wins when the chips are on the table.

We don't know if Story belongs on the most talented Red Sox roster, but he's going to get time to figure it out. And maybe that's not as bad a thing as we would have thought at the start of the week.