This week has changed my feeling and belief on the Red Sox.

I saw a team that was meandering through the season, with too much focus on who was running the ship. I saw a team with its worst All-Star break record (43-43) since 1997. I saw Josh Beckett and Jon Lester. I saw 81 wins in their future.

Now? Now, I see a team -- after losing its most productive player -- that’s bonding around returning players, getting timely production up and down the lineup, and I see a team bathing in Gatorade.

The Red Sox clubhouse was a morgue early in the season. Now? Now they’re playing "Off the Wall" and “Thriller” from Michael Jackson after wins.

The Red Sox have a good chance to win the World Series.

The problem is getting there.

Are they as talented as the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals? Certainly.

But what Ben Cherington must do in the next 10 days is do what Cardinals GM John Mozeliak did with the 2011 Cardinals.

The Cardinals had Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman as anchors in their lineup. They had catcher Yadier Molina anchoring and handling a pitching staff that included Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia and Kyle Lohse.

But the Cardinals were in dire need of bullpen help and back-of-the-rotation arms to carry them through August and September.

On July 27, 2011, Mozeliak traded Trever Miller, Colby Rasmus, Brian Tallet and P.J. Walters to the Blue Jays for Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson, Corey Patterson, Marc Rzepczynski and cash.

It didn’t pay immediate dividends. The Cardinals were 10 1/2 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central and the Braves in the wild card on Sept. 5. Milwaukee would not fold. But Atlanta? That was another story.

Few gave the Cardinals any chance. They were left dead in the water.

Face it, you don’t have to be great anymore to win baseball’s ultimate prize. You have to get hot at the right time.

The Cardinals had David Freese. The Red Sox have Will Middlebrooks. It’s not a stretch to think Middlebrooks could play the same role after Kevin Youkilis was traded to the White Sox on June 24.

Still, these Red Sox could use an infusion like the one Mozeliak provided to his club at the trade deadline, even if manager Bobby Valentine likes the direction his team is headed.

“I like my team. I like my pitching,” Valentine said before Thursday’s 2004-like win over the White Sox at Fenway, when Cody Ross morphed into Bill Mueller.

“I like our offense, our defense. If [Cherington] feels that there's a way of improving on what we have, I'll be all for that, too. But I don't see any gaping holes on our team," Valentine added. "All I can tell you is that Ben works as hard, as much, as diligently as anybody I've ever been around. If there's something he can do to improve our team, I'm sure he's going to do it. I don't know that there'll be one thing or many things or no things. But I'll guarantee you all avenues will be explored."

And the Red Sox aren’t even close to being in the dire straits the Cardinals were in. They have two more months, eight fewer games to make up and an extra wild card spot to play with.

Yes, they lost their most productive hitter in David Ortiz this week to a right Achilles injury. He’ll be out 2-3 weeks. But unlike the Reds -- who lost Joey Votto for the same time period on the same day (Monday) with torn meniscus in his left knee -- the Red Sox have plenty of offense behind Ortiz, with the return of Jacoby Ellsbury, Carl Crawford and Dustin Pedroia. They also have Cody Ross, who has turned into Babe Ruth this week, single-handedly saving the Red Sox on back-to-back nights.

A loyal follower -- @BostonRocks -- asked the following on Twitter: Trags, seriously man, Sox have any prayer to make playoffs this year? Please be honest Thanks bro

In the Red Sox organization, the playoffs aren’t a prayer or a hope, they’re an expectation year after year.

The World Series is the goal.

The members of the Sox' baseball operations staff, led by Cherington, don’t get swept up in the ups and downs and naysayers all around them. And, despite the silly furor over Larry Lucchino's All-Star "varsity" appeal to season ticket-holders, Cherington and his lieutenants don't worry about nor pay attention to e-mails.

They do a wonderful job of blocking out all the noise.

They know full well that the talent base is there to compete with anyone in baseball, including the Yankees and Rangers, if they get Ortiz back and they have Pedroia, Ellsbury and Crawford producing, with Ross and Mike Aviles coming up with timely production.

The naysayers remind us that Ellsbury and Crawford have been back less than a week and too many people are getting excited over a sample way too small.

So what? The Red Sox are going nowhere if they don’t produce anyway.

The biggest question on just how far this team can go needs to be answered by Josh Beckett and Jon Lester. Which is why, more than anything else, the Red Sox will do their level best to address the starting rotation.

Is there a market for a Franklin Morales and Felix Doubront? Could they be flipped, along with prospects, for a Matt Garza? Maybe. It's certainly worth looking into.

While we’re at it, forget Felix Hernandez. Even if the Red Sox could, they won’t trade the farm away for him. Matt Barnes is one huge reason why. The stud 22-year-old right-hander out of UConn is tearing it up in Class A with Greenville and Salem this season. He's 7-3 with a 2.33 ERA in 18 starts.

Theo Epstein made his legacy on the Nomar Garciaparra trade less than two years into his tenure as Red Sox general manager. The good news for Cherington is that he doesn’t even need to come close to that kind of deal to help the Red Sox make a second-half run.

These Red Sox have a lot of the 2004 team in them in one big regard: They’ve played .500 ball for over three months. But if they go on a run even remotely close to the streak the ’04 team did with a manager also in his first year at the reign, then they’ll find themselves in the playoffs.

Then, who knows?

The Trags Bag asks: What will happen to the Red Sox without David Ortiz in the lineup for an extended period? Can Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford keep it up and pick up the slack?

@TheRealityGM #RedSox fans & media have Ells/CC as the gr8est thing ever. It has been 3 games. 3!

@hurricanept If Ross/Gonzo can stay hot, yes. Especially if Pedey comes back strong. But not long term.

@0_LayDX Absolutely, he won't be gone for long and it's refreshing to see that speed on the bags. They can't replace his "power" tho

@drjefflo good pitching will have a field day without Big Papi in the #RedSox lineup. To face Texas and the Yankees without Davidwill be tough

@coopersam I think Agon is the bigger story.