So, Clay Buchholz might be around for the playoffs.

"I think there's absolutely a chance, I just don't know how big that chance is," said Red Sox team medical director Dr. Thomas Gill prior to the Red Sox' 3-2 win over the Indians Tuesday night.

Then again, Buchholz' stress fracture might not be fully healed. Or perhaps there just isn't time to ramp up the pitcher in time to be the postseason presence so many think the Sox desperately need.

"Once he's medically cleared, he then has to get baseball cleared, and that's a time frame we just don't know right now," Gill said.

So, with the uncertainty promising to linger right up until October comes calling, the question has to start being asked: Do the Red Sox absolutely, positively need Buchholz -- or a reasonable imitation -- to win the World Series, or can the foundation that is Josh Beckett and Jon Lester be enough?

In other words, does a team need three lockdown starters to earn a ring?

The answer is … sort of. Using history as our guide, the reality is that eventually you're probably going to have to uncover that arm with the potential of a Buchholz.

"If you don't have good pitching, you won't survive in the playoffs," said Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz. "I think we have the pieces, we'll just have to see how it goes. But I think we're in good shape."

When looking at the World Series winner over the last 10 years, there seems to be a common thread. There have certainly been teams with the kind of starting pitching uncertainty the Red Sox currently face, such as the 2006 Cardinals. That club, which beat the Tigers in the World Series, saw its starters finish with the major league's 20th-best starters ERA (a position the Sox currently find themselves in).

That Cardinals team finished with just one starter (Chris Carpenter) with an ERA under 4.00, and relied on two hurlers (Anthony Reyes, Jeff Weaver) with ERAs over 5.00.

But here is where the Cardinals offered a perfect example of how it must be done when it comes to getting to the promised land: They found some hot starters when it counted the most. From Aug. 1 until the end of the World Series, Jeff Suppan went 5-3 with a 2.71 ERA. He became the No. 2 guy. Weaver then got going at just the right time, finishing the last three months of the season with a 4.15 ERA, including a 2.43 clip in five playoff starts. The guy who had finished the regular season with a 5.76 ERA had become St. Louis' Buchholz.

Perhaps the World Series winner that is most identified with riding two starters to the title, the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, didn't do it with just the two-man show of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. The pair certainly went on of the best late-season/postseason runs in recent memory (from Aug. 1 until the World Series celebration Johnson went 12-2 with a 2.11 ERA while Schilling was 11-1 with a 2.12 ERA). But what helped put Arizona over the top of was emergence of a No. 3, Miguel Batista.

Heading into Aug. 1, 2001, Batista was decent, going 6-6 with a 3.50 ERA, but he hadn't offered the image of the kind of No. 3 starter that turned away postseason anxiety. But starting on the first day of August stretching to his final start in the playoffs, the righty went 6-3 with a 2.89 ERA, including eight innings of shutout ball in the World Series.

There are other examples of run-of-the-mill starters stepping up to become something more. Joe Blanton for the Phillies in '08, going 6-0 with a 3.62 ERA from Aug. 1 until the end of Philly's title run. Or Andy Pettitte, who, as the Yankees' No. 3 starter in '09, outperformed the team's No. 2, A.J. Burnett, by going 9-2 with a 3.42 ERA in the season's final three months after totaling a 4.51 ERA in the first four months.

We can find, however, one example of team in the past decade that made it through the postseason grind without the kind of No. 3 one would expect from a World Series winner. That would be the 2007 Red Sox.

For the final three months, the Sox leaned on the foursome of Beckett, Schilling, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester. The first two lived up their reputations, with Beckett going 11-2 with a 2.46 ERA and Schilling compiling a 6-4 mark with a 3.24 ERA. After that, it was a problem. During the same time span, the Sox' No. 3 pitcher, Matsuzaka, went 5-5 with a 5.71 ERA, including a 5.03 ERA in four postseason starts.

What helped carry the Sox during that '07 run was an fathomable stretch by Beckett in the playoffs (four runs in 30 innings), and an offense that finished the postseason with major league-best .313 batting average and .911 OPS.

The Red Sox could certainly execute a similar run this time around, riding the coattails of Beckett, Lester and the majors' best offense. But certainly the more conventional way to go would be to discover the next Batista, with Erik Bedard and John Lackey serving as the chief candidates.

Bedard exhibited the ability to go on such a role earlier this season, claiming the major league's second-best ERA (1.77) from April 27-June 27 before going on the disabled list for a strained left knee.

As many Red Sox fans remember, Lackey has gotten hot at the perfect time before, as well. Even though his Angels didn't seal the deal in '09, the righty totaled a 2.71 ERA over his last 10 starts.

"We can only do what we do," said Beckett, who did nothing to suggest that the Red Sox' dynamic duo of Tuesday night's starter and Lester not going to live up to their end of the bargain, allowing just two runs over six innings. "You have to go out and pitch good."

The question is: Will it be good enough?