Help has arrived, with more on the way for the Red Sox. But will it have arrived in time?

It has now been four weeks since Victor Martinez’ broken thumb helped to accelerate a downward spiral for the Red Sox offense that started with the loss of Dustin Pedroia two days earlier. In that time, the Sox have lost five games in the standings to both the Yankees (whose AL East advantage over the Sox has gone from two to seven game) and Rays (who went from one game behind Boston to four games ahead).

In the month of July, the Sox rank among the worst teams in the majors in several offensive categories, including runs (78, 23rd), runs per game (4.1, 22nd), average (.243, 25th) and OBP (.315, 23rd). Those numbers have borne out a notion that the Red Sox manager brought to light shortly after Martinez joined Pedroia (and Jacoby Ellsbury and Jeremy Hermida and Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz and Jed Lowrie and Mike Lowell and on and on) on the DL.

“We have good players and some of them are hurt,” Francona said on June 29. “It makes your margin for error a little bit smaller. Hopefully we won’t make errors.”

That forecast came to light in strikingly literal fashion in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Mariners. (Recap.) All seemed well for the Sox so long as Jon Lester made a bid at perfection. Once his flawless night was interrupted by a costly error by center fielder Eric Patterson (the first of Patteron’s career as a center fielder), however, the Sox quickly unraveled. By the time Michael Saunders followed Patterson’s drop of a fly ball from Jack Wilson with a two-run homer, an air of defeat hung over the punchless Sox.

The frustration became evident when Lester was pulled from the game after 7 2/3 innings, after the deficit had grown to 4-1. He walked past pitching coach John Farrell, ignoring the offer of a handshake, and erupted in the dugout, firing his glove in disgust and fuming.

The Sox are now 6-11 since July 4, and 8-11 this month. The team has enjoyed largely excellent pitching, with a 3.33 ERA that ranks fifth in the American League in the second half.

But the lineup holes, particularly a combination of catchers who have given the Sox, for all intents and purposes, a National League lineup, have prevented the club from benefiting from its fine work on the mound. The Sox have scored four or fewer runs in all but one of their second half games. In fact, the team has scored two or fewer runs in five of its nine contests since the All-Star break.

Reinforcements have started to trickle in, with more on the way. Beckett, Buchholz, Lowrie and Hermida are now back. Martinez might be back on the active roster as soon as Monday (12 days after he was initially forecasted to return).

Lowell is playing in the minors on a rehab stint right now, while Ellsbury will commence one on Monday. Pedroia keeps making noise about beating the six-week forecast for a return, even if by just a few days.

Still, the scope of what the Sox must accomplish with a healthy roster keeps growing, while the time in which to do it keeps dwindling. Moreover, it remains to be seen what the injured players will bring to the table when they return.

Such gloom comes with a disclaimer. The struggles of a team almost always seem to take on greater enormity when they take place in the shadow of the trade deadline, a time when a team’s flaws are placed under a giant microscope. That lesson is one that has occurred almost every year for the Sox in recent years:

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--In 2008, the team went 11-16 from June 28 through the trade deadline, including a 4-8 slide after July 18. The manufactured Manny Ramirez crisis hung like an anvil over the heads of the players for that period.

--The 2007 Sox were strong over the last couple weeks leading up to the deadline, but went 3-8 from July 6-19, and their iron grip on the AL East seemed vulnerable, with the team’s offense emerging as the biggest question mark.

--In 2005, as Manny Ramirez pouted his way through another month, the Sox stumbled from July 9-25 to a 5-9 mark.

--In 2004, the Sox went 19-20 in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, at a time when their defensive ineptitude and attitude both became major question marks.

In most instances, the Sox responded to the sense of panic that greeted the arrival of the trading deadline with some of their best baseball of the season once July 31 was behind them. In 2004, 2005 and 2008, August proved the best month of the season for the Sox. In 2007 and 2009, they likewise corrected course.

Now, the question becomes whether the Sox can do so again, or whether the hole has grown too big given the amount of time left on the calendar. They will test the proposition laid out by GM Theo Epstein in the wake of Martinez’ injury.

“We’ve played we’ve gotten ourselves in a position to withstand this and keep fighting,” Epstein said at the end of June. “And when we get fully healthy later in the year we should be a force to be reckoned with.”

Until they “get fully healthy,” however, the Sox will continue playing with that almost non-existent margin for error. How they perform in light of that circumstance will determine whether the return of their lineup mainstays is meaningful or a case of too little, too late.