BOSTON — Just because the Red Sox’ offense is struggling, don’t expect Terry Francona to make too many — if any — lineup changes heading into Game Three of the ALCS tonight at Fenway Park.

Jacoby Ellsbury is struggling and is 6-for-32 in the postseason at the top of the order. David Ortiz is hitless in his last 12 at-bats in the postseason. Those two need to be major contributors offensively if the Red Sox are to have success against an exceptional Tampa Bay pitching staff.

Ortiz is “right in the middle of our lineup,” said Francona. “When he does get hot, it’ll be certainly welcome. At the same time, when certain guys aren’t hitting, you just expect somebody else to pick up the slack. That’s how we’ve always felt. We’re not going to live and die with one guy. We’ll win as a ball club, and on certain nights when it’s tough, we’ll lose as a ball club .”

Still, there probably won’t be any drastic changes in the Sox’ lineup.

“We’re one of the best offenses in baseball,” said Dustin Pedroia, who went 2-for-3 with a walk in Game Three. “We’ve shown that all year. I don’t see a need to hit the panic button and start doing things out of the ordinary. We just need to swing the bats better. We don’t need to change anything.”

Bay isn’t ready to panic

Jason Bay thinks that the demise of the Red Sox’ offense has been greatly exaggerated thus far.

Although the Sox were shut down by Matt Garza last night, and some hitters are struggling in the series, the left fielder said that this offense has been fine overall.

“We put up, what, eight runs the other night, so it’s not the end of the world. We put up two and won the first night,” said Bay, who is hitting a scorching .455 in the ALCS.

Bay knows that the Red Sox are considered an offensive-minded, high-scoring team, but that doesn’t mean they need to put up double-digits every night.

“We don’t need to score 10 runs to win. Three or four, with the pitching that we can possibly get, might be enough,” he said.

Pedroia is set to bounce back

With last night’s loss, the Sox trail the Rays in the series, 2-1.

“We feel fine,” said Pedroia. “We’ve been here. We just have to come out and play better baseball. There are no excuses. They just came out and kicked out butts tonight. They played great and we didn’t. That’s the bottom line. It was a straight-up (butt) kicking. We have to play better.”

Byrd pitches in

Paul Byrd came into the game in the sixth inning to keep the Red Sox within striking distance. But after Rocco Baldelli hit a three-run shot off the Sports Authority sign atop the Green Monster in the eighth inning, he had a new role: Finish the game and save the bullpen for Game Four.

“I battled, did my best, a little frustrated with the number of runs I gave up, but hopefully, maybe, it’ll mean something to the guys in the pen,” Byrd said.

“I felt like I was helping us there for a while — they’re hot right now. I really didn’t feel like I was pitching that bad. I made one bad pitch, a hanging slider to Baldelli, and he hit it out,” Byrd said.

Francona sticks with Ellsbury

It was almost a year ago when Francona replaced a struggling Coco Crisp with Ellsbury in Game Six of the ALCS against the Indians. Ellsbury proved crucial the rest of that series and into the World Series. As he continues to struggle — especially with Pedroia hitting so well in this series — Francona may be forced to make another switch this year.

Prior to last night’s game, however, the manager didn’t think so.

“As long as I think we’re a better team with him hitting first, I’ll do it,” Francona said. “He had a tough game the other night, so did a few other guys. But because a guy has a tough game, or two, you don’t necessarily change the batting order. If there’s a place and time when I think we’re a better team doing something else, I would do it.”

dbarbari@projo.com