The Red Sox picked up where they left off this week, losing an 11-inning game to the Oakland A’s on Thursday. It was Boston’s first game since they lost a 19-inning game on Sunday.

Thank goodness for the All-Star break.

The Sox needed a breather in the midst of 30 rough innings, and no other part of the team needed that break more than the bullpen. Suddenly, the starting rotation has developed a bad habit of throwing a lot of pitches in a short number of innings.

Friday night, Josh Beckett lasted just 4.1 innings against an Oakland team that came to town struggling at the plate. The A’s took the field with the lowest batting average and the second-fewest runs scored in the league. Still, they managed eight hits and seven runs over the course of Beckett’s 97 pitches.

Beckett’s 11 wins still rank among the best in the league, yet he has given up an eye-popping 27 home runs on the season. He is now just 11 home runs shy of the Red Sox record.

Even more alarming is the fact that Beckett’s performance Friday made it seven straight games in which the Sox didn’t get more than six innings from their starting pitcher, putting a huge strain on the bullpen.

It’s a bullpen that seems to be built for a solid second half. Jonathan Papelbon is an All-Star closer, and if he keeps it up we’ll be hearing his name bandied about for Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, or even MVP.

Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarmen are proving to be the key bridge guys to Mike Timlin and Papelbon. Javier Lopez is an okay lefty, even though he was part of the 11th inning collapse last Sunday. The day before that, he retired Jim Thome, which is the sort of one-out situation they’ll be asking him to fill in the coming weeks.

Obviously, Rudy Seanez was the last choice to pitch in the 19-inning game Sunday. He took the loss. Julian Tavarez was the last man out of the pen during Thursday night’s extra-inning game. He took the loss.

The bullpen is a strong group of pitchers, but not strong enough to record 12-15 outs on a nightly basis. The starting rotation has to go deeper into games.

Jon Lester hasn’t lost a game in the big leagues yet, but he’s averaging 20 pitches an inning. He’s yet to go deeper than six innings in a start. He’s shown incredible composure, pitching out of a number of jams, but needs to be more efficient in his starts.

Most teams need to take a step backward to bring in young pitchers and rebuild. The Sox have done a remarkable job of staying in the hunt while turning over its pitching staff to the youngsters.

The youngsters are doing the job. They’re just being asked to do too much of the job. If this team is going to make a run at October, it needs the starters to start handling more of the workload.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is a studio host on Red Sox telecasts for NESN.