The Red Sox’ desire to add an impact player on Thursday won’t assuage a fanbase yearning for October baseball.
The Red Sox’ desire to add an impact player on Thursday won’t assuage a fanbase yearning for October baseball.
COMMENTARY
Craig Breslow said all the right things in the days leading up to Thursday’s MLB trade deadline.
Clinching the playoff spot for the first time since 2021 was far from a foregone conclusion ,with over 50 games left on the regular-season docket.
But, a 2025 Red Sox squad teeming with young talent and already showcasing plenty of resiliency was seemingly poised for some much-needed reinforcements.
“At some point, we need to stop with the stupid analogies and put the turn signal on,” Breslow told last week. “We’ve played really good baseball for the last few months. We’ve put ourselves in this position where we’re going to look to improve the team. That’s where we would want to be.
“I think everybody who takes this job does so with an eye on being in a place where not only can you add to the team but it’s the right decision. We obviously have to be mindful of the future. In a perfect world, we can improve our 2024 team and also our ‘25 and beyond. That’s my job. But I think as things stand right now, we’re looking for ways to improve the club.”
The Red Sox did just that over the last two days.
With the back end of Boston’s starting rotation in shambles following injuries to the likes of Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Hunter Dobbins, the Red Sox rolled the dice on a former top arm in Dodgers righty Dustin May.
Less than 12 hours earlier, the Red Sox also added another lefty to their bullpen by plucking veteran Steven Matz from the Cardinals.
The Red Sox — as currently constituted — are a better team than they were just a few days ago.
But, that sentence sure seems to ring hollow for a beleaguered fan base on Thursday, considering that several other teams in a wide-open playoff race fared much better during the trade-deadline feeding frenzy.
Boston might be better … but not nearly enough to move the needle for a team desperately trying to get back to October baseball.
“We pursued a number of really impact opportunities,” Breslow said on Thursday. “Obviously, not all of them work out, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying to be as aggressive as possible, or an unwillingness to get uncomfortable.
