The Boston Red Sox are home until the All-Star break, playing Toronto and Texas over the next week before most of the team takes a mid-summer breather. While five players (potentially six if Andrew Benintendi wins the online fan vote) will represent the Red Sox as part of the American League team in Washington, the remainder of the team will catch its breath and get ready for the unofficial second half.

(Unofficial more than ever. The Red Sox will have played 98 games before the All-Star break, and will have just 64 remaining.)

Dave Dombrowski and his front office staff won’t get the chance to relax over the break. When the team reconvenes in Detroit on July 20, there will be just 11 days remaining before the non-waiver trade deadline. The baseball ops staff will have to do whatever it can to improve its roster for the stretch run.

Dombrowski already made a minor move with the addition of veteran first baseman Steve Pearce. It wasn’t the kind of transaction that will energize a fan base. Yet Pearce has gone 11-for-24 with four doubles, a home run and five RBI with the Sox, stepping in for a couple of games last week when Mitch Moreland missed time with back spasms. Pearce has made the Sox a better team, which is the goal of any trade.

The Red Sox averaged seven runs a game on last week’s 7-2 road trip, so offense shouldn’t be a major concern as the deadline nears. The team’s pitching, on the other hand, may need a little help before all is said and done.

The Red Sox entered the season believing they had good starting rotation depth, but that depth has been put to the test. Brian Johnson joined Steven Wright and Drew Pomeranz on the disabled list Sunday, meaning manager Alex Cora had to scramble to fill a hole in his rotation against the Rangers. Hector Velazquez now will start Tuesday night at Fenway Park, but he hasn’t thrown more than three innings in an appearance since April 27. He’ll need to make several starts to get stretched out to the point that he can go six or more innings.

The Sox are hoping that doesn’t happen. They’d rather have Wright or Pomeranz making those starts. Wright has been the better starter of the two, but the swelling he has dealt with in his knee might force him to the bullpen. He started this year in relief and felt no soreness in the knee; that only changed when he took on the bigger workload in the rotation.

That leaves Pomeranz. After winning 17 games and posting a 3.31 ERA last year, he is 1-3 with a 6.81 ERA in 2018. He has given up 47 hits (and walked another 21 batters) in just 37 innings of work. Those numbers don’t exude confidence.

Will Dombrowski move to add a starter? It’s unlikely. He already has three starters making a combined $63.5 million and Chris Sale, Rick Porcello, and David Price are supposed to be the Big Three that leads them to a deep October run. It was a bad road trip for Price, giving up five home runs at Yankee Stadium and then hitting three batters in one inning in Kansas City.

Still, starting pitching isn’t cheap. And the Red Sox already have the highest payroll in baseball.

More likely, the move will be to add bullpen help. Dombrowski may do this to help the 2018 team and to help future squads. Both Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly are poised to become free agents at the end of the year, meaning there is a real possibility that the team will be in the market for a closer by Opening Day 2019. Why not get a hard-throwing reliever who could help set up for Kimbrel now, and potentially move into that closer’s slot if Kimbrel isn’t re-signed?

Every team can use relief help, so the Sox may well have to overpay to get an impact arm. Dombrowski is all in on a team that is on pace to shatter the franchise record for wins in a season. Upping the ante before the end of the month might be the difference between another early playoff exit and a shot at the title.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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