Boston Red Sox
“Right now, we’re focused on doing everything we can to turn our season around.”
Craig Breslow and the Red Sox aren’t waving the white flag on the 2026 season. AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough
May 27, 2026 | 7:41 PM
2 minutes to read
The 2026 Red Sox have done little to inspire confidence in their ability to pull themselves out of a months-long malaise this season.
At the time of Alex Cora’s firing last month, the Red Sox were performing well below expectations with a 10-17 record. Since Chad Tracy has taken the helm as interim manager, Boston has only “improved” to 12-14 and sit nine games below .500 with a 22-31 record on the year.
Given Boston’s continued struggles, the Red Sox could opt to wave the white flag and set the market ahead of the trade deadline — recouping prospects and other assets in order to try and make the most of a disappointing setback season.
The Red Sox do boast several veterans who could appeal to many other win-now clubs across baseball — including players like Aroldis Chapman, Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, Garrett Whitlock, and Jarren Duran.
But, speaking to MassLive’s Chris Cotillo on Wednesday, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said that Boston isn’t looking to tear down its roster — especially not at this stage of the season.
“Right now, we’re focused on doing everything we can to turn our season around,” Breslow told Cotillo. “It’s a group I’ve got a lot of confidence in. I know we haven’t been playing up to what we’re capable of doing. That’s the focus.”
Even though Boston’s pitching and defense have largely delivered on Breslow and the Red Sox’ goal of being a run-prevention club in 2026, the Red Sox’s lack of consistent offensive production has been a regular hindrance.
Despite scoring 25 runs over this recent four-game stretch (all of which have been losses), Boston’s lack of proven bats has put the club behind the eight-ball on numerous occasions this spring. The Red Sox entered Wednesday’s home game against the Braves in last place in MLB in runs scored (220).
Roman Anthony’s injury woes have compounded Boston’s inability to generate offense this season, but the case can be made that the Red Sox were still lacking at least one or two impact bats before the 2026 campaign got underway.
With Boston choosing not to sell off at this point, Breslow stressed that the franchise is looking for ways to improve the roster — a task easier said than done, given the exorbitant prices set out on the market just eight weeks into a new baseball season.
“We need to score more runs,” Breslow said. “One way to do that is to get guys that are here to play up to what we think they can be. Another is to obviously look at guys outside the organization.
“We’ve been aggressive in terms of outreach and trying to identify players that we think can help us. Obviously, we’ve talked about the fact that the league is very compressed and there’s a bunch of teams — despite poor performance — who are still in it. The other side of that is that there are other teams in the league who have not played well that otherwise could think about moving players and are saying, ‘Hey, we’re not that far out of it.’”
Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.
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