The Red Sox one week ago blasted six home runs in one game, their highest total of the season, in a 13-6 drubbing of the Tampa Bay Rays. They lashed 11 hits. They ended the night tied for first place in the American League East. Things were good.

Things are still good. The Red Sox will clinch a playoff spot with a victory tonight. They just took two of three from the pesky Blue Jays. David Ortiz is swatting homers like it's 2004 and Jacoby Ellsbury is driving the ball like he never has before.

The problem: Boston’s run totals in the five games since look like Madawaska temperature readings in January: 1, 3, 4, 3, 3. The Red Sox had not scored 14 runs or fewer in a five-game stretch since June 21.

One reason might be this: Of those five games, they faced Andy Sonnanstine, Matt Garza, A.J. Burnett, and Roy Halladay in four of them. Another reason might be this: Mike Lowell watched four of those games and played much of the other in splitting pain.

Until and unless Lowell and J.D. Drew return from injuries and start producing runs, the Red Sox may attach their postseason season hopes solely to the arms of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. That’s not an altogether a troubling scenario. But the Red Sox starters, it seems for now, may not be able to count on the offense bailing them out if need be.

Terry Francona, after the Sox lost, 6-3, to Halladay and Jays on Saturday, was asked if he was concerned about the offensive might missing without Drew and Lowell, or if the opposing pitchers were simply that good.

“We were facing Burnett and Halladay back to back,” Francona said. “We rely heavily on Mikey Lowell. We all know what J.D. can do offensively. But those two guys we just faced are pretty good.”

Yesterday, though, when the winless Scott Richmond made his fourth career start, Ortiz and Ellsbury provided the entirety of Boston’s offense on the way to another three-run game. It stands to reason having the 2007 World Series MVP sitting on the bench is not coincidence.

All of this requires a disclaimer. The five-game sample size we’re talking about is awfully small. Those games all came on the road, too, where the Sox average 4.7 runs, as opposed to 5.8 at home. If the Sox score, say, eight tonight in their return to Fenway and clinch the wild card, this post may seem frivolous by morning.

What do you think? How concerned, if at all, are you? And how concerned, if at all, should the Red Sox be about an offensive letdown in the playoffs?