More than any other major league baseball team, the Red Sox have redefined the term "impossible." They authored the game's original Impossible Dream in 1967, in 2004 became the first (and still only) baseball team to win a playoff series after losing the first three games, and last year became the first team to go from posting a .426 winning percentage one season to winning the World Series the next.

Ergo, nothing is impossible for the Sox.

Their chances of repeating as AL East champions, world champions or even playoff qualifiers this season become increasingly more unlikely, though, as the weeks drone on. Boston had Monday off and opens a three-game series with Toronto tonight at Fenway Park. As the Red Sox peer ahead at the rest of the season, their outlook should be this:

Cautiously pessimistic.

The Sox are 20-23 after 43 games, that deficit courtesy of the three-game weekend sweep by the Tigers. Since the Impossible Dream was authored in 1967, Boston has never been below .500 43 games into a season and made it to the playoffs. It has happened 12 times before this year, all but one of those occasions before the expanded wild card was introduced.

While the 119 games left to play provide the Red Sox with a lot of time and opportunity to get things right, and while their deficit in both the AL East and wild card races is almost inconsequential right now, 43 games is enough to establish team character, and that is the hardest part of the formula to adjust.

Boston's character is not very good. That isn't for lack of effort or commitment. Lack of talent? Maybe, because the 2014 Red Sox are not as good in reality as they looked on paper.

A.J. Pierzynski is a mistake, and now Boston is stuck with two 37-year-old catchers.

That's like having a pair of 85-year-olds serving as president of the United States and vice president.

Jackie Bradley Jr. is no Jacoby Ellsbury; he may not even be a Bob Zupcic. Will Middlebrooks, hurt again, seems to be much more potential than performance. The Grady Sizemore experiment is not working.

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Red Sox show little sign of repeating