ATLANTA — Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow preached urgency in turning around his club’s uneven start to the 2025 season Saturday — but seemed to indicate that he did not feel the need to shake things up for the sake of change in the immediate future.
Breslow, sitting in the dugout at Truist Park less than 24 hours after the Sox snapped a five-game losing streak with a Friday night win, didn’t sugarcoat a two-month stretch that has led to a 28-31 record for a club that entered the year with high expectations.
“The simple answer is it’s not good enough,” Breslow said Saturday. “It’s not the performance we expected in the offseason. I think we could point to a number of things. We haven’t really been able to sync up offense and defense. We have been sloppy in the field at times. We’ve run into to mistakes on the bases. We’re going to have to play clean baseball. We’re gonna have to start getting big hits and making big pitches if we want to rattle off the wins that we need.
“It’s too late in the season and I think the the evidence is too strong to just say, ‘We’re gonna be OK tomorrow when we wake up.’”
Asked about the job security of Cora, however, Breslow cited the three-year, $21.75 million extension the club handed to their manager last summer.
“We have a lot of confidence in Alex’s ability to lead this group,“ Breslow said. ”That doesn’t mean that we don’t have conversations every day about what we might be missing or what more we can do.
“We obviously made a commitment to Alex. We’re gonna see that through. Right now, it’s about making sure that we’re doing everything we can to enable the 26 guys on our roster to help us win as many games as possible.”
Still, Breslow didn’t cite some sort of shakeup as out of the realm of possibility. Asked about top prospect Roman Anthony, he repeated a familiar refrain about opportunity at the major league level and making sure Anthony was joining an environment in which he’d thrive. Asked about early-season trade opportunities, Breslow noted that the market is stagnant as other clubs try to “figure out who they are and what direction they want to take.” He downplayed — but did not fully rule out — changes to the coaching staff.
“I think it’s easy to point to that and say, ‘Hey, maybe we need to do something to shake things up, or rattle the cage a little bit,’” Breslow said. “I’m very mindful of not making a decision irresponsibly or hastily. But again, I think at this point we have to question everything that we’re doing, including me questioning the the work that I’m doing as well. We’re all in this together. I think the solution is going to come from the group that we have, but, I think we have to put everything on the table.
“That urgency to try and find a solution is something that I feel and something that our group feels,” he added. So if there is an opportunity to pull a lever or pull a string that that we think will impact our success on the field, we need to do that. But again, I wouldn’t want some move to paper over a more deeply rooted problem.”
Breslow also said Boston’s John Henry-led ownership group has been actively involved in conversations about how to turn around a club that enters Saturday in fourth place in the American League East, 8-½ games behind the Yankees, and 3-½ games back of the final wild card spot in the American League.
“I think everybody is in problem solving mode,” Breslow said. “They’re incredibly engaged and invested in what’s happening on the field and like the office, like our coaching staff and the players, they have high expectations for this season. We’re trying to put all options on the table to figure out where we go from here.”
To this point, the big changes since Opening Day have been necessitated by injury and need. Triston Casas’ season-ending knee injury forced Breslow — with little success — to ask Rafael Devers to pick up first base, then begin working out Kristian Campbell at the position. Top infield prospect Marcelo Mayer was only promoted once star third baseman Alex Bregman suffered a quad strain that will keep him out for weeks, if not months. There has been no unexpected move that has come as a result of performance. But if things continue to spiral, one can’t be counted out.
“I try to be rooted in doing what’s best for the team in every decision that I make,” Breslow said. “Whether that is a personnel decision, a transaction, a conversation. That’s what will continue to guide us.
“If we get to a place where we feel like shaking something up is the right thing for the team, obviously I need to be prepared to do that. But also, I am not one to scapegoat any individual. We’ve got 26 guys, we’ve got a coaching staff that all care deeply about trying to turn this around and making sure we’re winning games. My job is to help support that and push that in any way that I can.”
