Will Perkowski delivers a pitch in the first inning of Wednesday night's FCBL All-Star Game at Historic Holman Stadium. He'll be a key for the Silver Knights down the stretch. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The long months of planning resulted in an All-Star Week to remember.

Now the Nashua Silver Knights have to hope their even longer months of planning, as far as the roster goes, weren’t all for naught.

The final three weeks/16 games of the season begin tonight at New Britain as the Silver Knights try to bounce back from an ill-timed five-game losing streak that left them a half game out of a playoff berth at the All-Star break.

After beating Worcester 10 days ago, Nashua was a 20-20, then dropped the final five before the break, the toughest being a doubleheader loss at Vermont, the opener of which the Knights blew a 9-3 lead.

The dive is perplexing, because the numbers say otherwise. Nashua is second in hitting (.269), third in pitching (4.63 team ERA), second in fielding percentage and errors (.959/64), and third in total bases (504) and second in stolen bases (124) at the break.

Then what the heck is wrong? Over the course of the streak, the Knights were plagued with poor pitching when they hit, and lack of hitting when they pitched. The three games before the break was a perfect example. Nashua gave up just three runs to Westfield on a Saturday night, but were shut out. And then came the disaster in Vermont, when they scored 10 runs in the first game of two but gave up 14.

“Hopefully after the All-Star break we can jell it all together,” Silver Knights manager Nick Guarino said earlier this week.

But Guarino is finding out that last year’s demons are returning, putting the franchise in danger of missing the FCBL postseason for an unprecedented fourth straight year.

The demons? Roster departures. While the bulk of the everyday position lineup is staying, Nashua is facing a major overhaul of its pitching staff. Two-thirds of a struggling bullpen is gone, and a couple from the starting rotation as well.

That’s something the team had hoped to avoid when it put the roster together.

“I sat down today and we’re at 30 guys total, we’ve got a lot of room,” Guarino said. “We’ve added four new arms and we’re bringing in fifth. We’re picking up guys as we go.”

Nashua sends righty Malcolm Klinger to the mound at New Britain, then Donovan at Norwich in a huge game Friday. Will Perkowski, who started the All-Star Game, will get an extra day’s rest and go Saturday at Westfield, while Josh Florence is on the hill Sunday at Worcester. Nigel Cross, who tossed two innings in the All-Star Game, said his good-byes as he’s near his innings limit.

It was this time a year ago that the Knights were in the midst of a 10-game losing streak that killed their season on the field. The hope late this week is that can be avoided as now not only is Nashua in a race with Worcester and Norwich for the final two playoff spots, but Lowell at the break had crept to within two games of the Silver Knights in sixth place.

The slump conjurs up memories of last year, when the Knights went 2-15 down the stretch to finish 24-36 and out of the postseason for a third consecutive year. They want to avoid that at all costs, not wanting to be one of the three teams that miss the postseason. Lowell is now just two games behind the Knights, nipping at their heels. They see the Spinners for a 10:30 a.m.game next Wednesday after the second exhibition game with the Swamp Bats at Keene on Tuesday.

“Everyone’s in the same boat, everyone’s losing guys,” Guarino said. “The difference between us and everyone else is they have more numbers. We have 13 pitchers; everyone else has 18, 19. I think if we can get back to the numbers, someone’s got to stick, someone’s got to be good, someone’s got to pop.”

In other words, take the quantity and find in it some quality.

The makeup on this team is different than the one a year ago.

“I think our lineup’s a lot better than last year,” Guarino said. “That was the problem last year, our lineup. We’ll be able to win games even if we give up six or eight runs, we’ve had games when we’ve scored 13, 14 runs.

“We’re going to be able to swing it and play defense and keep ourselves in games.”

The walks/hit batsmen have gnawed at Guarino, but he knows what Nashua has to do: Beat the teams around it to grab that last spot. Easier said than done, especially with eight of the next nine on the road.

“Norwich and Westfield are the games you’ve got to win,” he said. “And we had the home stretch and really didn’t take care of business so now we can’t complain about being on the road, right. … Don’t complain about it. That’s going to be the mindset.”