The Red Sox have done nothing and since baseball fandom is such that you want your team to do its best to win all the time, at all costs, that the deadline has come and gone more or less without activity feels disappointing. The Sox came into today with a .5 game lead in the AL East, and calls for the sort of blockbuster that netted the Sox Orlando Cabrera in 2004 could be heard throughout Red Sox Nation.

Deadline day took on increased significance this year, as the last month of the season has made it clear as day that this Sox team, as it currently stood this morning, is merely one of a bunch of good teams. Clearly inferior to Minnesota, Detroit, the Los Angeles Angels and, after the Abreu/Lidle deal, the Yanks, Boston surely would need to do something to ensure themselves a good chance of making the playoffs in the bloodbath known as the 2006 American League. The Red Sox found themselves this morning more on par with the likes of Cleveland, Toronto, Oakland, the White Sox and Rangers – good teams all, but that clear next level down. A marquee acquisition could potentially have elevated them to that next level.

A deal never materialized. There was talk of Andruw Jones and Jake Peavy and Julio Lugo and Kip Wells and Roger Clemens and Dontrelle Willis and any other name that any ol’ rumor floater felt comfortable tossing out there. From the Boston side of things, and as it should be, seemingly nobody was off limits. Mike Lowell’s name came up and so did Mark Loretta’s. There was talk of the Sox admitting defeat just months after both signing and extending Coco Crisp and packaging the disappointing center fielder for an upgrade elsewhere. But when it came time to try and hammer out a deal, to send along the appropriate talent in order to score an improvement, Boston’s brass decided to call off the dogs and go with what they got.

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In the days and weeks leading up to the trade deadline, teams evaluate what they have, where they need upgrades, and what possible solutions exist to address their shortcomings. The Sox displayed plenty of chinks in the armor over the course of this evaluation period. They had a near dead-even run differential for the month, and the problem areas were clear. Here are some OPS figures for five everyday players in Boston’s lineup for the month:

Trot Nixon: .519
Mark Loretta: .629
Coco Crisp: .643
Kevin Youkilis: .669
Mike Lowell: .808 (but with a .297 on-base)

On the pitching side of things, only Jon Lester pitched decently while Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett fell short of expectations. There could no expectations for the hurlers asked to fill in the four and five slots in the rotation.

So the question became, where do the Sox need improvement, and how can they attain it at a price that makes sense for both the short-term and long-term welfare of the club? Since we now know that the deadline has passed, here is where things stand.

Coco Crisp has stunk all season but the Sox do not have a viable alternative to replace him. He’s in there, will play everyday and the Sox will just have to hope he chips in with production that approximates what he was able to do with the Tribe. He’s better than this, and we all need to hope he starts to show it.

Kevin Youkilis, though probably not the player he we hoped he might be in June, is not this bad either. I expect him to improve and settle into a perfectly acceptable .285/.380/.450 type of player. Again, the Sox do not have an alternative here. They will live or die with Youk.

Mike Lowell, given his stellar defensive play, hasn’t really been a problem at any point this season – even when he has entered into prolonged hitting slumps. Still, it’s not exactly pie-in-the-sky to hope he improves upon July for the rest of the year.

The Sox have a decision to make at second base. Mark Loretta sucked all of July, was acceptable in June, lights out in May and sucked hard in April. He hasn’t been much of a defensive player all season long. All told, he probably slots in somewhere between average and replacement level – a top-30 second baseman for sure but not doing a whole lot to help you win ballgames. There is an alternative here, albeit a ballsy one, that would provide at worst a lateral move and at best a significant upgrade. After a slow start and a solid June in which he hit .324/.380/.463 for Pawtucket, Dustin Pedroia hit .370/.459/.533 for the month of July. He’s ready, and the Sox have a need. A call to Pedroia would go a long way to convince me that in deciding not to make a trade, the Sox did not punt the season but rather determined that the names available were not worth the cost.

It has just been announced that Trot Nixon will go on the Disabled List and sad though it may be for the denizens of Nixon lovers, this is a great thing for the team’s fortunes. Wily Mo Pena has hit .320/.379/.484 this season and has proven to be an everyday caliber player over the course of his career. He will get a shot now, and no matter how badly he falls on his face, he won’t fall short of Nixon’s July production. He can’t. It would be nearly impossible.

On the pitching side of things, tonight will tell us a lot. If David Wells can turn in a quality start against a great hitting Tribe team, there will be real cause for optimism. The long-range plan for the starting pitching will take something of a prayer, but not an altogether unrealistic scenario. Wells steps in and takes his regular turn for the rest of the year, Tim Wakefield comes back healthy in a few weeks and the Sox have to just withstand three or four more Kyle Snyder starts. Obviously, Boomer’s and Wake’s health will determine a lot the rest of the way.

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The decision to forego a trade was certainly a reasonable one. After all, with so many teams playing so well in the AL, even the biggest possible blockbuster would have guaranteed nothing in the short-term – not with the Angels, Twins, Yankees and Tigers trucking along. Counterintuitive though it may be, in a year like this that is so competitive, it is better to stand pat. A costly upgrade only marginally improves a team’s chances because so many other teams remain in the hunt. Still, in Dustin Pedroia, Wily Mo Pena, David Wells and Tim Wakefield, the Sox have opportunities to upgrade over the course of the coming weeks. If these four can provide meaningful contribution, the Sox will battle it out for the post-season and once in, could very well make noise. And if they fall short, I would remind Sox fans of two things: one, that Boston is very well-positioned for the long-term and two, that qualifying for the playoffs is not our God-given birthright. Winning 91 or 92 games and giving it another crack in 2007 would not mean the end of the world.

But we’ll worry about that only when we have to. Tonight, the ball’s in Boomer’s court as the rest of the season kicks off.