For the defending World Series champion Red Sox, the season started like a mildly bad dream and then started to feel like a nightmare.

The good news? There are 150 games left, and the deficit to the surging Rays in the American League East is a manageable 6 1/2 games.

At 3-9 on Wednesday’s well-timed off-day, the Sox will aim to join the 1991 Twins, '35 Tigers and '14 Boston Braves as teams who have lost nine or more of the first 12 games and gone on to win the World Series.

“We have to play better,” said manager Alex Cora. “I’ve been saying it all along. Better defense, better offense, pitch better.”

Here is an itemized list that could present the road to recovery for the Red Sox.

Start with starters

The glass never looks emptier for a team than when the starting rotation isn’t doing its job. Who would have thought this would be a problem with the Red Sox? They came into the season with one of the best staffs on paper. So far, it hasn’t added up, in part because ace Chris Sale (0-3, 9.00 ERA) is struggling the most.

But it has been a collective failure. Sox starters are 0-8 with an 8.78 ERA, worst in the Majors. For reference, the team that ranks 29th, the White Sox, has a starters' ERA of nearly two runs lower.

While putting the starters on a conservative program with low inning totals in Spring Training had no adverse effect on the Sox last year, perhaps that method left the pitchers less sharp a year later. Boston thinks it will win the tradeoff with its starters being at their best late in the season, but the club has to make sure it stays in contention to get the full benefit of the plan. The turnaround from the rotation needs to happen soon. The good news is that all five starters are healthy.

Reclaim identity at the plate

The offensive struggles aren’t as glaring as the pitching, but the Red Sox don’t have the same consistency, swagger and thunder as an offense that they displayed nearly all of last season. Consider that the Sox, who led the American League in countless offensive categories last year, are currently 10th in OPS (.690) and batting average (.237). Even with those unsavory numbers, the Sox are still a respectable fifth in runs scored (51), which shows what they will do when they are fully functioning.

“On and off, up and down,” Cora said when asked about his offense. “I do feel we need to get back to hunting pitches in the strike zone. That’s something we did a good job of last year; so far, we haven’t done that. We are swinging at pitches on the edges of the zone. Sometimes we’re taking pitches middle-middle, early in counts, pitches that, at this level, they know we can do damage with, so that’s something we’re going to keep talking about.

“There are certain guys, their nature is to be patient, but sometimes you have to push the pitchers out of the zone, and that’s when all of a sudden it’s 1-0, 2-0, 3-1 and you start getting your pitches to hit. But there’s a lot of 0-1 counts, 0-2 counts against us so far this season, and we need to change that.”

Control the running game

The Red Sox got an in-your-face reminder of their lapses in controlling the running game when Toronto’s Lourdes Gurriel Jr. had a straight steal of home in Tuesday’s home opener. Sale admitted later he was caught off-guard, and he had to change his pitch mid-grip from a slider to a fastball to increase his chances of nailing Gurriel. Instead, the pitch sailed to the backstop and the Red Sox were on the wrong side of a spectacular play. Sox catchers have just one caught stealing in 10 attempts so far. But it isn’t all on the catchers.

“They’re taking advantage of us,” said Cora. “We have to do a better job of slowing down the running game. Teams are running against us. We need to mix it up. We saw it during the road trip and saw it [in the home opener].”

Communicate on defense

The Red Sox were a well-oiled machine on defense in 2018, boasting two AL Gold Glove Award winners (Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts) and two finalists (Mitch Moreland and Andrew Benintendi). Thus far, the Sox have looked unsure of themselves in key spots in the field. Betts and Bradley staring at each other when a ground-rule double dropped right between them in Oakland was the most obvious example. But there have been others.

The best teams play in perfect harmony, and the Red Sox have lacked that, particularly on defense. The return of veteran second baseman Dustin Pedroia should improve communication in the infield.

Ignore the noise

In Boston, there is noise when the team is playing slightly below expectations. When a season starts like this, the criticism from media and fans can get hard to tune out and lead to players putting too much pressure on themselves.

For now, the Sox would be best to stay off of social media and away from talk radio until they right themselves. If a family member or friend wants to tell a player what people are saying about them from the outside, the player would benefit from saying, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

"I mean, don't try to do too much,” said Pedroia. “We can't come out of it in one game. It's got to be to just play consistent, good baseball and that'll do it. And we have the right people to do that. It's just a matter of settling in and taking a deep breath and playing together. And we're going to do that."