And so just a day or two after manager Terry Francona spoke of the Red Sox getting their "house in order," the fall cleanup officially begins. There will be guests coming in October. How long they stay depends entirely on the Red Sox, who will now spend the next five days tidying up.

Specifically as it pertains to their pitching.

Winners of the American League wild card berth by virtue of the Los Angeles Angels’ victory over the Texas Rangers last night in Anaheim, the Red Sox scattered last night following an 8-7 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park. Some players stayed and some players went. A few hours later, when the Angels had completed a 5-2 win over the Rangers, the Red Sox had qualified for their sixth playoff appearance in seven years, no small feat even for a team with a sizable payroll and a productive farm system.

Give the Red Sox their due. In baseball, especially, there is really no such thing as backing in. The Red Sox this year had to work for the right to play in October, something that should never, ever be considered a birthright.

Lest anyone think the next five games now have been rendered meaningless, think again. The Red Sox still have plenty of work to do this week. The fact that the Sox now have lost 7 of 9 is not nearly so alarming as the manner in which it has happened, which is to say that the Red Sox' starting rotation has not had a great week. Jon Lester was getting knocked around by the Yankees on Friday before he took a line drive off the right leg. Josh Beckett was scratched on Tuesday with back spasms. Then Clay Buchholz went out and surrendered five home runs last night, digging the Red Sox an early deficit for the second consecutive night.

"That’s a tough way to play when you’re down that much,’’ Francona said after the loss. "It’s happened a couple of nights in a row.’’

Fine, so Monday’s loss came behind Michael Bowden, who won’t be pitching in October. But Bowden was pitching only because Beckett was scratched. That happened only a few days after Lester hobbled off the mound at Yankee Stadium. Just like that, the Nos. 1, 2, and 3 starters in the Boston rotation have encountered some unexpected glitches on what amounts to the eve of the postseason.

With regard to Lester, he will take the mound tomorrow night lined up to pitch Game 1 next week. Beckett is slated to go Saturday and Buchholz is scheduled to go Sunday. The important thing now is for the Red Sox to get their pitchers back on the mound, beyond any physical issues or concerns, and feeling good about themselves. Poor outings over the balance of this week won’t do anything to help their cause. The Red Sox don’t need to win games between now and late Sunday so much as they need to pitch well, just to ensure that they are firing on all cylinders when take the field against the Angels next week.

Last night, for whatever reason, Buchholz looked nothing like the starter who went 5-0 with a 1.32 ERA over his previous six starts. Rather, he looked far more like the pitcher who allowed seven runs to the White Sox on Aug. 24. Francona and Buchholz both made reference to the Jays "sitting soft’’ during Buchholz’s outing last night, meaning that Buchholz either is getting quite predictable -- he loves that changeup -- or that he was poorly executing what is his best pitch.

Given that Buchholz’s changeup, especially, was consistently up in the strike zone, maybe it was a little of both.

"If you sit on it and you get it on the thigh, it’s a tough pitch to miss," Buchholz admitted. "I got to the kill counts and I didn’t throw the pitches where they needed to be.’’

As a whole, of course, the Red Sox have been in kill counts for more than a week. After sweeping the Orioles in Baltimore on Sept. 20, the Red Sox were 30 games over .500 and on the verge of closing out yet another postseason appearance. During the nine days since, they have won just twice and experienced some unforeseen instability -- even if only a little -- while seemingly going into cruise control. The games this week will have positively no bearing on the ones next week – again, it’s not about the results – but the Red Sox now have five days to do some fine-tuning before making a run at their third World Series title in the last six years.

Because of the front-end pitching on this team, we all know the Red Sox have as good an opportunity as anyone this October. Once the Rangers succumbed last night, Dustin Pedroia succinctly told reporters, "I like our chances.’’ All the Sox need to do is use the next five days to get their legs back under them, eliminate any residual doubt, polish off the edges.

Come next week, after all, there will be decidedly little margin for error.