These Boston Red Sox shouldn't be on the roster by July 1

The more things change, the more they stay frustratingly the same for the Boston Red Sox. It's been nearly two months now since Alex Cora and several members of his coaching staff were shown the door, and yet the team has been ... pretty much exactly the same under interim manager Chad Tracy, who's gone 19-22 across his 41 games at the helm. The offense? Still non-existent. The pitching? Somehow even more injured.

Boston obviously entered the season with World Series aspirations. But it's mid-June now; if things don't turn around soon, Craig Breslow will have no choice but to pull the plug and make some difficult decisions at the trade deadline. And that means changes need to be made to this roster ASAP — starting with the four players below.

INF Andruw Monasterio

Monasterio can play all over the infield, and he can hit lefties reasonably well. You know who else can do both of those things? Romy Gonzalez, who just homered in Double-A on Tuesday as part of a rehab assignment.

Will the return of Gonzalez turn this offense around? Of course not; he's hardly a 25-homer hitter. But he should at least put together more competitive at-bats than Monasterio, and he should be playable against right-handed pitchers in a way that Monasterio simply isn't. Once he's ready to return, this should be an easy call to make.

C/INF Mickey Gasper

Not all that much has changed with the Red Sox — on the field, at least — since Chad Tracy took over, but my goodness does that man love him some Mickey Gasper. The switch-hitting catcher slash DH slash pinch-hitter has started nine games already this month, turning things into a timeshare behind the plate with Connor Wong and Carlos Narvaez.

There's just one problem: This is the 30-year-old Gasper's third big-league stint now, and we have very little evidence to suggest that he's a big-league-caliber hitter. It would be one thing if he were bringing a ton of defensive value, but all the evidence suggests he's a middling framer. Sure, the versatility is nice, but it feels more like a party trick than something that's actually helping Boston's roster.

INF Isiah Kiner-Falefa

Well that was fun while it lasted. IKF finally showed some signs of life at the plate a few weeks ago, but since then he's fallen right back into being the hitter he's been for yearss now — and that's not a very good one.

It tells you a lot about the state of the Red Sox lineup that the pending return of Gonzalez is calling multiple players' futures into question, because there are somehow multiple light-hitting multi-positional defenders who are only tolerable against lefty pitching. Kiner-Falefa is at least a genuine asset with the glove, but you should really only be spending one roster spot on this fifth-infielder type.

LHP Jake Bennett

This isn't really Bennett's fault, as the injury bug — well, the injury bug and some questionable Craig Breslow trades — has decimated what used to be enviable Boston pitching depth. But since he's been thrust into the rotation with Garrett Crochet on the IL for an indeterminate period of time, it's become pretty clear that the lefty is simply a quad-A arm.

He's struck out just eight batters while walking five across 15.1 innings of work in his first three MLB starts, pitching to a 5.28 ERA. The expected ERA and FIP are a bit better than that, and Bennett's changeup looks like a real weapon, but the 25-year-old feels destined to settle into some sort of swingman role over the long haul. The Red Sox have little choice but to ride with him for the time being, but with Patrick Sandoval starting a rehab assignment (and Crochet hopefully back at some point this year), his days are numbered.

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