The Boston Red Sox have had the wind taken out of their sails recently.

Gone are the positive vibes that accompanied the recent five-game winning streak, in the simpler times before Rafael Devers was traded. This team is back to its worst tricks, losing six in a row entering play on Saturday and playing a sloppy game up and down the roster.

Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has been steadfast after moving Devers–the Red Sox. he says, are buyers and not sellers. But they’ve been hit hard by the injury bug, so without their best hitter, the lineup is punchless and could use an immediate shot in the arm.

Unfortunately, as Breslow explained recently, making another trade now, while it might be an appealing prospect, isn’t very realistic given the way executives treat the run-up to the Jul. 31 deadline.

“My guess is somewhere at some point guys decided it was pretty inefficient to have a conversation on June 1 and say you’re to buy and come July 1 say, ‘Actually we have played terrible baseball for a month and we’re selling,'” Breslow said, per Rob Bradford of WEEI.

So fine, the Red Sox can’t make a trade just yet. They’ve got to hang in there with the threadbare roster they’ve got for a few more weeks. But once the deadline rolls around, and assuming they’re still in a position to buy, do they know what they are going to need?

Slow down. Breslow was asked if it was fair to say his team was still in the process of deciding what they need at the deadline, and, well…

“Yeah. I think so,” Breslow said, per Bradford. “We can say our starting pitching has been inconsistent. That is absolutely true. But we also have some guys who are starting to turn the corner. We want to make sure when we identify an area we can improve we’re improving what the alternatives that we have here.

It’s all the more frustrating that Boston traded Devers when they did in light of comments like these. The Red Sox can’t make a trade because other teams won’t deal with them, and they don’t really even know what they need if someone were to pick up the phone.

This team needs a miracle to survive the summer in any sort of reasonable playoff contention.

More MLB: Red Sox’s Jarren Duran Breaks Silence On Possible Trade Out Of Boston