Following the trade, the Red Sox went 3-6 on a deflating West Coast trip. Then they returned to Boston for a series against a division opponent, and the Blue Jays smacked them 9-0 on Friday night.<\/p>\n
After a season-high six-game losing streak, the Red Sox are eight games behind the division-leading Yankees, with four teams between them and the third wild-card spot. So there\u2019s urgency to play like a team capable of postseason contention.<\/p>\n
Breslow addressed three areas of need in starting pitching, bullpen help and another bat for the lineup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bullpen has been really good for a really long time, we\u2019ve asked a lot of them,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think at times we see some of the work just catching up with guys. Hopefully getting Jordan Hicks into the mix there means that we can get guys like (Greg) Weissert and (Garrett) Whitlock and Justin Wilson an extra day when they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow: \u201cWe went into 2025 expecting to compete for the division and expecting to make it to the playoffs. We haven\u2019t played as well as we\u2019re capable of, but that goal still exists.\u201d (Jerome Miron \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Hicks (toe inflammation) is scheduled for his second rehab outing with Triple-A Worcester on Friday and could join the Red Sox during this homestand.<\/p>\n
Starter Tanner Houck remains on the injury list with a flexor pronator strain and is scheduled to pitch following an opener on Sunday in Worcester. Hunter Dobbins (elbow) has been playing catch and may throw a bullpen this weekend.<\/p>\n
Harrison, who made his first start for Worcester earlier this week, allowing four runs in four innings, is likely to be in the rotation mix at some point in the second half. Regardless, adding starting depth remains a focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some depth built up, but whether it\u2019s injury or performance, we just haven\u2019t gotten that run of consistent deep starting pitching,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cGarrett (Crochet) has obviously been excellent all season, but we saw the type of team that we can be when our starters are pitching deep into games.\u201d<\/p>\n
On offense, the Red Sox have predictably struggled without Devers\u2019 bat in the lineup. Over the past 10 games, they\u2019ve averaged 2.8 runs per game with a .184 batting average compared to 4.8 runs per game and a .253 average leading up to the trade.<\/p>\n
The lineup will have some internal reinforcements soon, with Alex Bregman (quad) and Masataka Yoshida (shoulder) likely to return after the All-Star break, but Breslow suggested bolstering the lineup will also be on his agenda.<\/p>\n
Yoshida is expected to begin a rehab assignment for Worcester on Tuesday, where he\u2019ll also see time in the outfield. Bregman hit for the first time on Friday and will take grounders on Saturday. The team will reevaluate him next week to determine when he\u2019ll be ready for a rehab assignment.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen if Yoshida could be traded over the next several weeks as he begins his rehab assignment. But since he hasn\u2019t played in a game this season and is owed more than $40 million through 2027, his trade value remains marginal. Breslow is likely to trade from a surplus of outfielders, with Jarren Duran\u2019s name surfacing on a few occasions already.<\/p>\n
Manager Alex Cora offered a realistic viewpoint with the trade deadline just over 30 days away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to play better,\u201d Cora said. \u201cIt\u2019s been kind of like the same thing I\u2019ve been saying all along. We\u2019re that close. You can\u2019t go back, but a pitch here, a pitch there, a play there, or a play there, and it\u2019s a positive road trip. But it wasn\u2019t. So we have to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the last trade deadline, Breslow\u2019s first in charge of the team, he acquired starter James Paxton, relievers Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia and right-handed bat Danny Jansen. Paxton, Sims and Garcia were injured and offered little help in the second half.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox weren\u2019t officially out of the wild card until the final week of the season, though, giving Breslow impetus to push harder this season.<\/p>\n
Having already traded Devers in a mid-June blockbuster, this season is already much different than last year, but Breslow said he\u2019s reflected on how this year might be different.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went into (last year) thinking, \u2018OK, these are the needs of the team,\u2019 and we walked out of the trade deadline with acquisitions that address those positions,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether they work out or they don\u2019t, the moves are going to be evaluated by the performance over the second half of the season. Ours didn\u2019t work out. It\u2019s not OK to just say, \u2018Hey, that\u2019s baseball.\u2019 The obvious question is, \u2018Why didn\u2019t they work?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether that\u2019s doing more work on the players that we\u2019re bringing in, having a better understanding of their ability to perform here at Fenway, there\u2019s always more questions that we need to ask,\u201d Breslow said. \u201cWhether we bring in a standard household name or we bring in someone that is lesser known, the impact is going to be driven by what that player does from the day they get here until the end of the season. And we need to do everything we can to make sure that they\u2019re going to help us win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Kim Klement Neitzel \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 As the Boston Red Sox return to Fenway Park for their first homestand without Rafael Devers…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1281,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-22086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-boston-red-sox","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}